A key feature of the Diabetes Center is the close working relationship between clinical staff and research staff. In fact, many of our physicians and nurses actively pursue research while maintaining their high standards of clinical care. Most will argue that it is, in fact, our strong commitment to clinical research that has kept the Diabetes Clinical Center ranked as one of the top centers in the nation for diabetes care. Our active clinical research program means that our patients have early access to the late-breaking technologies, new treatment options and new strategies for diagnosing and managing Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. The Diabetes Center at UCSF is well-established in the world of diabetes clinical trials, as it is one of only a handful of diabetes facilities nationwide designated as a clinical site of the "Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet", an NIH-funded initiative to develop preventative therapies for type 1 diabetes. For specific information about TrialNet research activities at UCSF, please click on this link. As well, the Diabetes Center is also the home of the "Immune Tolerance Network", one of the largest clinical trials research programs ever funded by the National Institutes of Health and home to some of the most progressive diabetes trials in the world. We also house the "JDRF Center for Islet Transplantation at UCSF and University of Minnesota," whose mission is to bring rapid innovation to clinical trials of islet transplantation. The new UCSF Islet and Cellular Transplantation Center is the hub for many of our emerging clinical trials.
However, clinical trials of new drug therapies are not the only aspect of clinical research performed by Diabetes Center researchers. Many of our faculty is pursuing clinical studies designed to measure the psychological and psychosocial implications of diabetes. Other faculty is performing clinical studies searching for and investigating factors that predispose individuals to type 1 or type 2 diabetes, for instance, hunting down new genetic markers or genetic defects, or investigating the implications of obesity, diet and exercise in the development of type 2 diabetes. Still others are performing clinical studies that examine the development and impact of the numerous, serious secondary complications of diabetes. More detailed information on the clinical research programs of individual faculty are available below. If you are looking for specific information on clinical trials happening at the Diabetes Center, visit our on-line Clinical Trials Database.
