Michael Conte, MD Awarded 4-year $1.7M NIH U01 Grant to Fund National Center in Diabetic Foot Consortium

Michael S. Conte, MD, chief of the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at UCSF, and one of nation's leading vascular surgeons, was awarded a 4-year, $1.7M U01 grant by the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a unit of the NIH, to fund one of 6 national centers in the Diabetic Foot Consortium. 

Conte and podiatrist Alexander Reyzelman, DPM, a co-investigator on the grant, are co-Directors of the UCSF Center for Limb Preservation.

The NIDDK research is being carried out via a network of Clinical Research Units (CRUs). The UCSF Diabetic Foot CRU is comprised of teams at UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG), and builds on the work of the UCSF Center for Limb Preservation, UCSF Diabetes Center, UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Center for Type 2 Diabetes Translational Research (CDTR) of the NIDDK.  
 

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) are a debilitating complication for up to a quarter of the nearly 30 million individuals in the U.S. who have diabetes and the cause of most non-traumatic lower leg amputations. New diagnostic and therapeutic modalities are sorely needed for this major public health problem, but advances thus far have been hampered by challenges in clinical trial design and execution. The UCSF DFU will conduct innovative studies in a socio-economic ethnically diverse patient population and will generate high quality data for the national consortium.  

Dr. Conte views the research as having great potential to improve the care of patients with diabetes at risk of foot and leg amputation:

This new NIH program represents a tremendous opportunity to advance the science and care of vulnerable patients with DFU, a major unmet need. This award reflects the high quality clinical care and scientific expertise of our team at UCSF, ZSFG, and the Center for Limb Preservation. We are excited to amplify our ongoing work through the NIDDK Consortium.

Co-Investigators on the study include podiatrists Monara Dini, DPM and Alexander Reyzelman, Dean Schillinger, MD, chief of the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at ZSFG and founding Director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, and vascular surgeon Shant Vartanian, MD.

Project Information at NIH RePORTER 

NIDDK Workshop on Biomarkers for the Diabetic Foot Consortium

Related Story at UCSF News

Saving Limbs and Toes From the Grip of Diabetes With Clinic’s New Approach