Project Summary (2022-2027)

The Duke University Superfund Research Center (DUSRC) aims to understand and address major public health problems related to early-life co-exposure to hazardous contaminants and neurodevelopmental outcomes. The Administrative and Research Translation Core (ARTC) of the DUSRC provides holistic support of the organized whole and promote integration of the constituent parts. The ARTC is the formal and central framework for support, oversight, and planning for the DUSRC’s research, events and activities. As such, the ARTC:

• Facilitates central planning and coordination.
• Provides fiscal oversight and guidance to ensure compliance with institutional and federal regulations.
• Leverages stakeholder and partnership networks to engage key stakeholders beyond the DUSRC.
• Communicates needs-driven research and facilitates effective research application.
• Facilitates and promotes the transfer of technology from Center Investigators to relevant audiences.
• Builds Center investigator and trainee capacity for timely and effective science communication and research translation.

The ARTC employs a matrix structure for assimilation of this information and the dissemination of research findings among Center Investigators, students, researchers and staff via monthly Center-wide research discussion meetings, trainee chalk talks, weekly seminars and bi-annual symposia, annual External Advisory Committee meeting, and consistent biweekly internal meetings of the ARTC PIs and staff.

The organizational plan of the Center consists of direct reporting lines from Project and Core PIs to the Center’s Director, Dr. Heather Stapleton, and Deputy Director, Dr. Richard Di Giulio, and research translation efforts are supervised by Dr. Charlotte Clark.

Through evaluation of annual milestones and success metrics, ARTC management of the DUSRC supports a seamless systems approach to research with discovery across projects and cores tightly coupled to accelerate progress; bidirectional communication with stakeholders; avoidance of overdrafts and carry-overs on a regular basis; timely SRP data updates; timely NIH CareerTrac database updates; timely online resource updates and production of translational material in support of stakeholders and end users; and finally, trainees who receive high-impact, interdisciplinary environmental health workforce training.