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SUMMARY
UNM HSC is an Institution of Emerging Excellence in biomedical and behavioral research, and has seen dramatic
growth in the research enterprise over the last 15 years. The current proposal aims to continue this trajectory
by construction of a new core facility focused on substance use disorders and brain injury. Investigators at UNM,
have established innovative research programs that are addressing these complex and interrelated topics,
however their efforts are currently constrained by a lack of state of the art facilities. Development of effective
interdisciplinary teams is also limited because our investigators and key resources are currently scattered across
campus. The Interdisciplinary Substance Use and Brain Injury (ISUBI) core facility addresses these critical
barriers, supports currently funded NIH investigators, and will provide a platform for generation of new
programmatic research efforts. ISUBI will provide unique set of capabilities and an interactive environment that
actively supports translation of basic science to clinical testing and real-world application, as a core facility
available to investigators at UNM. It will also provide a valuable hub for investigators throughout our state and
national research networks. The proposal is for 16,000gsf of new construction on the UNM Health Sciences
Center campus. The new facility will be attached to an existing research building (Domenici Hall) that currently
houses a subset of UNM HSC investigators addressing neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry and neurosurgical
research. The new construction will add a two-story wing to the existing building, and a key design principle for
the facility is interdisciplinary interactions and cross-fertilization of ideas. This is essential to address traditional
roadblocks for translational research, and ensure work from this core facility is impactful and generalizable. The
ground floor is designed for state-of-the art rodent model generation, behavioral and neurophysiological analyses
The modular design of the ground floor is optimized to minimize animal movement, noise and odor
contamination, as well as providing efficiency for high throughput, automated studies that are needed for local
investigators and attractive to outside users. Surgery and recovery resources are adjacent to holding and testing
areas, with modules self-contained for individual types of injury or drug study. The upper floor is designed for the
conduct of clinical studies and analysis/integration of a range of clinical and preclinical data sets that can be
brought to bear on brain injury and substance use disorders. The design of the upper floor also includes
specialized core resources for carefully controlled clinical studies of drug exposure, customized observation
suites that simulate real-world scenarios, and collection of biological specimens and brain activity data (EEG and
fNIRS). The upper floor also provides core resources for big data analysis, required for preclinical and clinical
data streams focused on injury and substance use disorders. This proposal is part of the long-term commitment
to development and maintenance of advanced brain research facilities at UNM HSC, and ISUBI is expected to
have a powerful and sustained impact biomedical research at the institution, and regionally and nationally.