Background of the CTRU

The CTRU was formerly the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). The Stanford GCRC was founded in 1962 and has been in continuous operation since then.  Branimir I. (Brandy) Sikic, MD, was program director of the GCRC from 1993 to 2008, and with the transition to the Spectrum grant in 2008, became the Director of the CTRU.

A separate Pediatric GCRC, originally designated for research on prematurity (The Premature Research Center), was opened in 1962, and in 1993 this unit was combined with the main GCRC. At that time, the Program Director of the Pediatric GCRC, David K. Stevenson, MD became the Associate Program Director of the Stanford GCRC. Dr. Stevenson expanded the Pediatric Component to include all other Pediatric Clinical Translational Research (CTR).

The CTRU currently supports 170 active protocols studying:

• new therapies for cancers
• insulin resistance and its relationship to type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD)
• cure of Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas
• psychotic depression
• other diseases
• studies involving nutrition and therapeutic compliance.

The number of principal investigators involved in CTRU studies has grown to over 70, distributed among three University Schools, and 18 separate departments and divisions.

The CTRU has supported many important clinical research accomplishments and many significant medical advances.  Accomplishments include:

• Studies of drug resistance in cancer therapies
• Advances in the cure of Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas
• Cardiac transplantation
• Dyslipidemias and glucose homeostasis
• Monoclonal antibody therapies
• Noninvasive detection of bilirubin production
• Noninvasive imaging of tissue structure and function
• Antiviral therapy
• Pediatrics - Infectious Diseases