UF’s Institute on Aging (IOA) is headquartered in the 39,000-square-foot south wing of the Clinical and Translational Research Building (CTRB), a LEED Platinum facility that opened in 2013. Construction of the three-story IOA-CTRB wing was funded by a 2010 NIH ARRA award of $14.7 million. Today, the IOA-CTRB functions as a collaborative hub with shared resources that have significantly enhanced capacity at UF for all stages of clinical and translational research focused on the needs of older adults.
The IOA-CTRB provides a welcoming environment with a good balance of individual and team spaces that can be adapted to meet the needs of research teams as well as students and trainees. The IOA-CTRB wing is home to the IOA, an advanced therapeutics clinic in development, and teams from the departments of biostatistics and epidemiology. It houses approximately 40 offices and 40 workstations, plus additional student work spaces; three conference rooms with state-of-the-art audio and visual capabilities; and several employee lounges and treadmill workstations. The building’s environmentally friendly design ensures ample natural light and overlooks UF’s Wilmot Botanical Gardens, which provides a peaceful and verdant respite for faculty, staff, participants and the public.
Research participants have easy access to a dedicated parking lot in front of the building and a direct entrance to the IOA reception and waiting area. The IOA owns a van and golf cart to assist with transportation needs. IOA-CTRB clinical research facilities include a nursing station; lab processing, blood draw and physical evaluation rooms; DXA and Biodex equipment; eight exam and interview rooms; a conference room for group screenings and interviews; a screening and recruitment suite; and drug vault, data entry and secured file storage rooms.
IOA-CTRB Study Highlights
Sepsis Study
A multidisciplinary team from UF led a prospective cohort study to better understand sepsis in critically ill surgical patients, and to spur development of novel management strategies and targeted therapies. The study followed more than 400 sepsis survivors for one year following discharge from the hospital to assess their functional recovery, with follow-up visits conducted at the IOA-CTRB, which offers close parking and other aging-friendly design features.
ROAMM
Faculty members from the UF colleges of medicine and engineering developed a smartwatch-based framework for real-time online assessment and mobility monitoring, or ROAMM. ROAMM has been shown to be useful in multiple studies in generating a detailed narrative about mobility, patient-reported outcomes and symptoms, and reports of health events. The team’s work has been facilitated by the UF Pepper Center’s Clinical Research and Data Science and Applied Technologies cores, both based in the IOA-CTRB.
Clinical Trials
UF aging researchers have been highly successful in translating findings from preclinical research into phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials, including the RIPE, REVIVE, SPICE, COCOA, NEET, D-SAFE, ASPREE, LIFE, ENERGISE, and Testosterone trials. The IOA-CTRB served as a venue for the trials, which involved mobile health technologies as well as nutritional, pharmaceutical and lifestyle interventions.
