Cores
Call Us
(615) 343-8776
tn-cfar@vumc.org
About the Tennessee CFAR CSC
The Clinical Sciences Core (CSC) helps Tennessee CFAR investigators access research participants, clinical data, and biospecimens needed for high-quality HIV research. The Core provides expertise, infrastructure, and research support that enable clinical and translational studies across the CFAR.
The CSC works closely with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Meharry Medical College, the Tennessee Department of Health, and Nashville CARES to expand research opportunities, strengthen collaborations, and support investigators at all career stages. By connecting researchers with clinical cohorts, community partners, and research resources, the CSC helps advance HIV research and improve health outcomes through three specific aims.
Specific Aims of the CSC
TO SUPPORT RESEARCH PROJECTS THAT REQUIRE ACCESS TO STUDY PARTICIPANTS AND ASSOCIATED BIOLOGICAL SPECIMENS.
Infrastructure to support research involving study volunteers is essential for HIV investigations. The CSC leverages, in part, infrastructure of participant-based HIV research programs used for HIV clinical trials at Vanderbilt to serve CFAR investigators.
TO PROPEL USE OF OBSERVATIONAL DATABASES FOR HIV IMPACT HIV CLINICAL AND TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH.
The CSC’s highly productive Epidemiology & Outcomes Group supports analyses that extend from local databases (especially the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic) to statewide, national and global databases. The Epidemiology & Outcomes Group has nurtured the careers of many trainees and early-stage investigators across all CFAR partner institutions.
TO SUPPORT GROWING RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEHARRY INVESTIGATORS AND TO BUILD UPON NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITH ENDING THE HIV EPIDEMIC (EHE) COLLEAGUES IN MEMPHIS.
The CSC emphasizes team science to grow collaborations between VUMC investigators with investigators at MMC and in Memphis, with a focus on nurturing team leadership by MMC and Memphis investigators. This builds on some success to date promoting clinical research collaborations between VUMC investigators with investigators at MMC and in Memphis, which are generating some of the first ever joint publications in HIV.
Services Offered
- Consult on study design, analysis, and protocol development
- Validated retrospective datasets tailored to investigators’ needs
- REDCap database design for prospective studies
- Data management
- Regulatory and IRB support
- Identification of individuals who are eligible for research according to study-specific criteria
- Recruitment and informed consent
- Study visits with Research Nurses, including specimen collection
- Microbiome specimen collection
- Qualitative interviewing
- Clinical skills such as Freid’s frailty examination, cognitive assessment, venipuncture, oral glucose tolerance testing
- Isolation of peripheral blood mononucleated cells (PBMCs)
- Access to specimen repository
- Monthly study recruitment dashboards for principal investigators (PIs)
For service request or inquiries, please contact tn-cfar@vumc.org
CSC Leadership
April Pettit, MD, MPH
Core Director | View Profile Here
David Haas, MD
Co-Director | View Profile Here
Vladimir Berthaud, MD, MPH
Co-Director | View Profile Here
Timothy Sterling, MD
Director of Epidemiology & Outcomes Group | View Profile Here