# Overall: Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Vanderbilt

> **NIH NIH P50** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $1,387,605

## Abstract

Founded in 1965 as one of the original Intellectual and Developmental Disorders Research Centers
(IDDRC), the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) IDDRC serves as the central nexus across Vanderbilt for
interdisciplinary research, communication, and training in intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The
VKC IDDRC serves as a trans-institutional institute that brings together over 200 faculty from 38 departments
in 10 schools at Vanderbilt. The VKC’s mission to facilitate discoveries that inform best practices to improve
the lives of people with IDD and their families. This mission is met by leveraging our outstanding institutional
resources and support, partnering with disability communities, and capitalizing on synergistic interactions
across the VKC’s federally-designated centers: the VKC IDDRC, a University Center of Excellence in
Developmental Disabilities and a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities program. The
IDDRC as the centerpiece of the VKC is the foundational organizing structure that creates a “Center culture”
wherein research and discovery permeates the VKC’s broader training and service activities, thus enhancing
the translational research goals of the IDDRC. Demonstrable IDDRC success includes 976 investigator-
authored publications and robust NIH funding to Vanderbilt to support IDD-related research ($52.6M in FY20).
Harnessing and leveraging this trans-institutional strength to focus on unique challenges in IDD, the
overarching goal of the next phase of the IDDRC is to develop precision care for IDD by providing
infrastructure and scientific leadership to enable rapid translation of basic discoveries into high-
impact IDD interventions and treatments. Three global Aims guide the IDDRC’s work. Aim 1 provides core
services to enable and disseminate impactful research on individualizing treatments based upon the causes,
mechanisms, and contributing co-morbid sequelae of IDD; Aim 2 focuses on incorporating innovative methods
and approaches to enhance multidisciplinary IDD research; and Aim 3 proposes to conduct a signature
research project to improve the precision use of antipsychotic medication in people with autism. Across these
Aims and five Cores supported by the IDDRC (Administrative, Clinical Translational, Translational
Neuroscience, Behavioral Phenotyping, and Data Sciences), three themes permeate our work: (1) recruitment
of highly-skilled researchers not currently conducting IDD research (non-traditional researchers); (2) inclusion
of IDD participants into research studies that currently do not include IDD (non-traditional subjects); and (3)
incorporation of novel scientific approaches and methods (non-traditional approaches). Our IDDRC is ideally
posed to enable rapid discovery of precision care approaches by supporting 50 investigators leading 70
research projects (15 from NICHD) and, as highlighted by the Signature Research Project, to promote and
implement generative, novel, and impactful resea...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10085550
- **Project number:** 1P50HD103537-01
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Jeffrey L Neul
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,387,605
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-06 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10085550

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10085550, Overall: Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Vanderbilt (1P50HD103537-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10085550. Licensed CC0.

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