# RC2: Clinical Research Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCIENCE CENTER · 2020 · $212,929

## Abstract

The overarching goal of RC2 is to offer comprehensive, centralized, clinical trial support for study design,
regulatory compliance, recruitment, retention, assessment, procedures, pharmacology, and data management.
 During the initial award cycle, RC2 quadrupled (to 20) its number of trials, the majority of which were phase
1 trials to evaluate safety and tolerability of compounds in healthy older adults and phase 2, proof-of-concept
studies to obtain preliminary data on efficacy and functional parameters (e.g. healthspan) in patients with age-
related disease. Major accomplishments made by OAIC members with RC2 support include: the first study of
rapamycin in healthy older adults; the first senolytics trial in humans; and launching of an NIH-funded long-term
trial of metformin for frailty prevention. RC2 played a key role in the career development of OAIC Scholars who
received highly prestigious grants, including a K76 Beeson Award and a VA Career Development Award-2.
 RC2 has built a robust program to insure that good clinical practice (GCP) is followed in clinical studies. Our
programs include: subject recruitment and retention, a subject registry and repository, a data safety monitoring
board (DSMB), a Geriatrics Practice Based Research Network (PBRN), and a community advisory board. RC2
provides critical clinical pharmacology services to support biospecimen (plasma, CSF, urine, muscle, adipose)
collection, or to measure levels of drugs (e.g. metformin, senolytics) or ensure safe administration of local
anesthetics to participants receiving biopsies. RC2 contributed to the overall OAIC program mission by closely
collaborating with other geroscience programs, including multi-center, phase 2 studies on senolytics and stem
cell activators (e.g. oxytocin), and multi-center trials such as the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity
Consortium (MoTrPAC), ASPREE-XT, and DPPOS. RC2 achieves its mission through the following Aims:
 1) Provide expertise and advice for investigators to plan and design innovative clinical studies to rigorously
test interventions to improve healthspan; 2) Enhance the SA OAIC support infrastructure to ensure successful
subject recruitment and safe and ethical conduct of all OAIC-supported clinical studies; 3) Catalyze translational
human studies and trials through provision of comprehensive core services; 4) Provide analytical and clinical
pharmacology expertise supporting drug pharmacokinetic, and pharmacodynamic analyses as well as toxicity
and safety assessment; 5) Disseminate to the lay public and scientific community the latest research on
geroscience-related health promotion and the importance/relevance of translational geroscience research; and
6) Support training in translational geroscience for early-stage faculty and those new to clinical research.
 In the first year of the next award cycle, RC2 plans to support 3 pilot, 3 Scholar, and 10 external projects.
Additionally, RC2 will begin 3 developmental projects...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10028132
- **Project number:** 2P30AG044271-06
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCIENCE CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Sara Elyse Espinoza
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $212,929
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10028132

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10028132, RC2: Clinical Research Core (2P30AG044271-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10028132. Licensed CC0.

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