USF gets $60 million for diabetes care, research

About a year ago, USF officials invited Emma Donahue to walk through the empty floor of one of their medical buildings and tell them what she wanted.

A teenager with Type 1 diabetes, her main goal in life was "something close to just being normal," she said. When she saw USF's new Diabetes Center, formally opened on Monday, she felt a surge of hope.

USF unveiled the new center, on World Diabetes Day, with an announcement that the university was also getting nearly $60 million in research grants.

For the first time at USF, diabetes patients will be able to get clinical care and counseling in the same place where researchers are searching for a cure to the disease.

"We're in a new era of discovery," said center Director Jeffrey Krischer, one of many researchers looking at the causes of diabetes in the interplay of genes and other factors, such as viruses or environmental triggers.

"This is all brand new, cutting-edge science," he said.

Until now, however, people who wanted to participate in diabetes research had to go to other centers, such as Shands HealthCare, in Gainesville, for tests and appointments.

For years, USF "dreamed of a place where patients could benefit from our research" on campus, USF President Judy Genshaft said in a prerecorded address to the crowd at the opening, on the 5th floor of the Carol & Frank Morsani Center for Advanced Healthcare.

At the new 10,000-square-foot center, they'll be able to participate in clinical trials and have access to the latest developments in diabetes care, she said.

There's a playroom for children, even a kitchen where family members can learn how to make healthy meals, which are critical to controlling diabetes.

"I love it how everyone here is focused on my care and my health, and everyone else affected by diabetes," Emma said.

Her father Brian loves having Krischer, a world-famous biostatistician, as director of the center.

"To have such a stud here in Tampa is a phenomenal, phenomenal opportunity," Brian Donahue said. "He's like the lens that focuses all the light on diabetes research."

Krischer has brought hundreds of millions to USF for his diabetes research. Most of the work, however, has been coordinating research going on at other centers.

Vice President of USF Health, Stephen Klasko, said the university decided to leverage Krischer's reputation to bring research to Tampa.

Most of the grant money announced on Monday, $55.9 million, came from the National Institutes of Health. The rest, $3.5 million, is from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The USF diabetes researchers are focusing on Type 1 diabetes, whose patients can't survive without insulin and can't control the disease with lifestyle changes, as people with Type 2 diabetes can.

Emma Donahue is one of more than a million people with Type 1. She learned she had it seven years ago, at 9.

It took her a while to accept what that meant.

She has to get an insulin shot before every meal and every night. She's a swimmer and has to monitor her blood sugar almost around the clock when she's competing.

That once empty room she walked through last year is "now filled with so many resources and very cool things," she said.

She's eager for her doctors and counselors at the new center to teach her something new, "any new technique … anything to help."