Administrative Core

The Michigan Prostate SPORE Administrative Core is responsible for the leadership, guidance, and management of this proposal. The Administrative Core oversees all aspects and performs numerous duties across the wide scope of the SPORE to support the translational goals of the investigators. The SPORE Administrative Core is guided by the following Specific Aims: Specific Aim 1: Provide scientific, programmatic, and administrative leadership to all aspects of the SPORE. Specific Aim 2: Develop, facilitate, and monitor progress of translational aims with project Co-Leaders. Specific Aim 3: Identify, support, and facilitate scientific collaborations. The Administrative Core is charged with creating a culture of collaboration through fostering and helping to establish and maintain successful collaborations. Specific Aim 4: Facilitate communication between investigators and groups within the Michigan Prostate SPORE as well as with other institutional SPOREs, the SPORE network outside the University of Michigan, NCI, and investigators across the spectrum of translational cancer research. Specific Aim 5: Perform fiscal and data management functions. Specific Aim 6: Provide functional and ethical oversight to projects and cores and coordinate patient advocacy. The Core provides support and oversight to ensure that all investigators have IRB and animal approvals in place to conduct research. The Core will develop and maintain an advocacy portal for our prostate cancer patient community. Arul M. Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, serves as Core Director. Ganesh Palapattu, MD, will serve as Co-Director of the Administrative Core and provide overall scientific oversight. Dr. Chinnaiyan will be responsible for overall program organization and fiscal oversight as well as the Biostatistics/Bioinformatics and Biospecimen/Pathology Cores. Dr. Palapattu will be responsible for mentorship and development of collaborators and trainees, as well as oversight of clinical aspects of the SPORE. They will be assisted by Drs. Matthew Davenport and Ajjai Alva as Co-Investigators and members of the Clinical Applications Committee. They will help to provide leadership in clinical trials and therapeutic oversight, patient advocacy, and minority community engagement. Jyoti Athanikar, PhD, has been serving as the Michigan Prostate SPORE administrator during the previous funding period and will continue in this role for the renewal. She will be assisted by Jason Gillow as the Michigan Prostate SPORE finance administrator. This Core provides the framework to support the success and mission of the Michigan Prostate SPORE as a cohesive group of investigators committed to supporting translational research in prostate cancer.