The MUSC Library is located approximately 100 yards from the Alcohol Research Center. It serves the campus, affiliated professional staff, and state health professions as a database and knowledge center, an academic computing support unit, an electronic education center, and a leader in information planning. The Library maintains a comprehensive collection of books, journals, slides, tapes, and videocassettes, subscribes to 1,369 print journals, and has access to almost 3,000 electronic journals. Online resources include the full catalog as well as major biomedical databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SciFinder, and PubMED). The library serves as a resource library within the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and is a major health science resource library for the State of South Carolina and the Southeast.
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One conference room available to the Center is located in the Thurmond/Gazes Building, just across the street from the Institute of Psychiatry. This conference room, which seats 75 and has state-of-the-art audio/visual equipment, is often used for seminars. Additionally, the University has a wide assortment of conference and meeting rooms to supplement those available in CDAP and the Institute of Psychiatry, including large auditoriums that can seat several hundred. Several of the rooms have videoteleconferencing capability.
This office provides pre-award support, focusing on proposal development. It monitors print and electronic data sources, identifies funding opportunities, helps develop proposal concepts, networks faculty members with complementary interests, offers grantwriting consultation and workshops, assembles institutional data, and prepares competitive proposals for training and infrastructure improvement.
The ORSP handles certifications and assurances, ensures that policies and procedures are followed, helps prepare budgets, negotiates terms and conditions, maintains a proposal and awards database, administers the program of intramural research grants, and oversees re-budgeting and close-out activities. Within this unit, the Office of Research Integrity oversees compliance with regulations for research involving human or animal subjects, and coordinates management of conflict of interest, financial disclosure, and scientific integrity requirements.
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As a unit of the Division of Finance and Administration, GCA is responsible for the post-award administration of sponsored grants and contracts awarded to the University including: Financial reporting and administration; application of cost accounting principles and standards to sponsored program expenditures; and the development of policies, procedures, and related training to ensure compliance.
The use of human subjects in research at MUSC falls under the jurisdiction of federal regulation. MUSC investigators are granted the privilege of using human subjects under normal assurance to the government that research conducted complies with these regulations. The University has a Federal Wide Assurance for research with human subjects and is in compliance with federal policy governing use of human subjects. The Office of Research Integrity coordinates the activities of three IRB committees, which meet monthly to review protocols for the purpose of safeguarding the rights and welfare of human subjects. IRB members include a lawyer, a minister, and other lay persons, as well as MUSC faculty.
The IACUC oversees all animal research and instruction at MUSC in order to ensure that ethical, regulatory, and policy mandates governing the use of animals in research and instruction are met. The Committee is comprised of people, including representatives of the public, qualified to oversee MUSC's animal program, facilities, and procedures. The IACUC's charge is to: Review and approve the animal welfare aspects for all research and instruction at MUSC; review MUSC's program for the humane care and use of animals twice annually; conduct inspections twice annually on all MUSC animal facilities; prepare and submit evaluation reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost; make recommendations regarding any aspect of MUSC's animal program, facilities, or personnel training; and suspend any activity involving animals which violates applicable regulations, policies, procedures or an approved protocol.
Before initiating, modifying, or extending any research project that uses animals, principal investigators must submit an application to the IACUC for review and approval. MUSC's quality assurance program has been validated by an unbroken record of compliance with regulatory inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC International). The animal care program has maintained AAALAC accreditation since 1987.
Online training is required for all personnel listed on animal protocols submitted to the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Confirmation of training through the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources is needed for protocol approval. Before initiating, modifying, or extending any research project that uses animals, principal investigators must submit an application to the IACUC for review and approval.
All laboratory animal services at MUSC are administered by the DLAR. The Division is responsible for all programs and policies necessary to meet all federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding the care and use of laboratory animals at MUSC. All animals used in research and teaching must be procured through DLAR and housed in approved facilities within the institution. Before animals are procured, the investigator must have on file a protocol which has been approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Veterinarian consultation and clinical services for laboratory animals are available free of charge. Charges are assessed for technical services relating to the conduction of research projects and for the daily husbandry of laboratory animals (per diem charges).
The GCRC, which has had continuous NIH support since 1977, is designed to meet the University's translational and clinical research needs, and to provide a clinical research center that both supports and encourages research. The 9,200 sq. ft. facility includes 8 examination rooms, 2 procedure rooms, a dental operatory, a bone densitometry suite, and an echocardiography/oximetry room. Core areas for biostatistics and informatics are located adjacent to the examination areas, giving clinical investigators very convenient access to expertise in these special areas. A blood drawing station and sample preparation laboratory ensure expert sample processing. A specialized molecular core laboratory provides services and expertise to support studies requiring basic molecular biology, as well as population-based studies.
The Center for Advanced Imaging Research (CAIR) began in 1995 as a multidisciplinary collaboration among the departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Radiology. The CAIR image analysis laboratory occupies 400 sq ft on the 2nd floor of the MUSC Medical Center, which is located directly across the street from the Institute of Psychiatry. Currently, there are more than 20 projects being conducted in the CAIR ranging from pre-surgical mapping to studies on interleaved TMS and fMRI or VNS and fMRI using methods ranging from perfusion SPECT to echoplanar BOLD fMRI. The resources available in CAIR include three Philips 1.5T MRI scanners and a 3T Philips MRI scanner. MUSC CAIR was awarded a statewide center of excellence award to partner with the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina, to form a statewide collaboration of neuroscientists, bioengineers and physicists.
OCIO-IS is responsible for the development and oversight of MUSC's computing network, resources and applications. The campus data network provides and supports educational, research, clinical, administrative and financial applications across the campus and Medical Center. OCIO-IS also provides electronic mail services for all MUSC students, faculty and staff, enabling rapid communications within and outside the University. The Alcohol Research Center's Information Technology Manager works with OCIO-IS to keep our computer operations running smoothly. He also serves on the campus-wide committee of IT managers which integrates the efforts of the individual, organizational IT managers with OCIO-IS, and has served a term as its chairman.
MUSC's Educational Technology Laboratory is developing ways to use emerging Internet technology to teach more effectively and expose students to a world of information that would have been unavailable to them only a few years ago. Laboratory members work with faculty members to design instruction packages that incorporate course curriculum with the information resources and interactivity of Internet technology.
The Department of Educational Technology Services provides a wide range of services to support the clinical, educational, and research missions of MUSC. Among the services offered are audio visual support, digital imaging, and video and art services. This range of support includes the illustration, design, and photography support for posters for scientific presentations.
ETS oversees one-way and two-way video conferencing instructional delivery technologies in support of the University's distance education goals. To that end, two classrooms and several conference rooms have been equipped with the current video conferencing equipment and the use of high-speed digital connections to deliver conferences and courses originating on campus to international sites.
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The Print Shop offers document scanning for mass copying, offset and letterpress printing, full-color printing, wide choices of paper surfaces and color stock, paste-up and composition services, and desktop publishing through the use of PageMaker, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, Photoshop, WordPerfect, and Microsoft Office. Print shop services are used widely by the ARC including the printing of the ARC Newsletter.