Civitan International Research Center (CIRC) is a center dedicated to integrating knowledge and methods from various scientific fields to improve the lives of those who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.
In 1917, Civitan International (CI), a volunteer civic organization, was created by a group of businessmen in Birmingham, Alabama, striving to make a difference in their community. After years of supporting local and regional projects, CI began to focus their efforts on research, leading to a vision for an international research center.
In 1989, CI would establish CIRC with a $20 million dollar pledge and open the center on UAB’s campus.
This year, the center celebrates 35 years of growing impact.
Embarking on a lifelong mission
Since its opening, the center has grown to become a world leader in research and treatment of intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 2018, Craig Powell, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Neurobiology, was named director of CIRC. As a clinician and scientist, Powell is uniquely positioned to advance neurobiology discoveries outside the laboratory and into the clinics.
In his position as director, Powell states that his role is to foster neurodevelopmental disorders research and care across the entire UAB campus.
“Our long-term goal is always to optimize the quality of life and well-being of patients and families challenged by neurodevelopmental disorders,” says Powell. “This means providing them to access with world-class care now, providing hope for the future through groundbreaking research on the therapies of tomorrow, and training caregivers that will care for them for decades to come.”
Transforming Neurodevelopmental Research
At the start of his role, Powell was determined to create a Clinical and Translational Research Core that would support research on neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and intellectual disability. In 2019, the center hired Cassandra Newsom, Psy.D., who would create the research core.
With the support of strategic hires, the Department of Medicine, and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Newsom created a new patient registry system that would track patients, collect research data, and build a biorepository now nearing 200 participants.
This allowed Newsom’s team to diagnose two additional patients each week from the Civitan-sparks Clinic waiting list, which resulted in more free autism diagnoses in Alabama.
“Now, the research core supports more than $20 million and growing, in multi-investigator grants and clinical trials,” says Powell. “They write specialized neuropsychiatric cognitive/behavioral outcome portions of the grant proposals and oversee all of the neurobehavioral, neuropsychological, and neurocognitive testing in newly renovated CIRC building space used by multiple departments and schools/colleges across UAB.”
Vision for the coming year
As the center celebrates 35 years of exceptional research, it looks forward to a bright and transformative future.
“In the coming year, we will roll out initiatives to begin sequencing the DNA of our patient registry participants, to explore the contribution of environmental influences on human neurodevelopment, and to provide pilot funding to support large, multidisciplinary grant applications in the future,” says Powell.
“Over the next five years or so, we hope to once again become competitive on a national level for an Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center grant from NIH.”
Recently, the center held a CIRC Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research and Care Retreat with over 60 attendees. The event fostered multiple future collaborations, highlighting the center’s commitment to advancing research and building partnerships.
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