The Center for Translational Research Institute's (CTRI's) General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) was established in1974 through a competitive grant application to the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and has been in continuous operation since that time. It provides the necessary clinical research infrastructure to perform high quality clinical research studies to scientific investigators who receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other Federal agencies, foundations or industry.

The institute is committed to facilitating interdisciplinary and collaborative patient-oriented research, and its GCRC currently helps to equip scientists and medical researchers with the tools and specialized personnel necessary to conduct the highest quality human research in a safe and controlled setting. The CTRI's GCRC, in its current form, is funded through 2010 on a 5 year competitive award cycle and will transition, and be subsumed , along with other research resources, into a new and improved multidisciplinary Clinical Translational Science Center through a new funding mechanism established by the NCRR.

The resources of the UCSD CTRI's GCRC currently Include:

• Eight inpatient beds, two outpatient rooms and administrative support space at the UCSD Medical Center with adjacent nursing station and waiting room on the 9th floor – east wing
• Metabolic kitchen for specialized nutritional needs
• Informatics core for computer support
• Biostatisticians for assistance with project design and analysis
• A 1100 sq. ft. core laboratory for specialized assays
• An outpatient facility on the main La Jolla campus encompassing approximately 3000 square feet
• Laboratory for Sleep and Chronobiology including rooms on the 2nd floor of the VAMCSD as well as dedicated sleep rooms in the 9th floor unit
• DEXA scanner
• Exercise core with treadmill and metabolic cart, and stationary bicycles
• Dedicated Staff including: registered nurses, polysomnography technologists, a registered dietitian, biostatisticians, computer systems manager/network administrator, technical laboratory staff, DEXA technicians, allied health care professionals