ACHRI houses excellent research programs in infectious diseases, endocrinology, osteogenesis, pediatric pharmacology, and the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation. Each of these programs contributes to the overall strength of the research institute. Moreover, all of the programs housed at ACHRI have the potential for expansion through collaborative research. A few of our research programs are featured below.

Diabetes Research Working Group
The Diabetes Research Working Group is a collaborative effort among ACHRI investigators who share a common interest in the study of Type I and Type II diabetes in children and adolescents. Currently, this group has research efforts exploring new interventions to control diabetes, how new bio-markers may help to detect and prevent complications of diabetes, and how diabetes may impact previously underappreciated target tissues, such as bone. ACHRI, through its ongoing support and efforts of this focus group, plans to bolster their ongoing efforts to increase extramural funding, enhance scientific discovery, and augment the institution's national and international status among Children's' Research Hospitals.

Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention
The Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention seeks to reduce the prevalence of birth defects in Arkansas and the nation and to reduce the economic, social, and psychological impact of birth defects at a state and national level. To accomplish this goal, the Center conducts research on the etiology and prevention of birth defects through the successful completion of high-caliber epidemiologic studies. In addition, the Center is establishing a Genomic Research Laboratory Core that will support the Center in its epidemiologic research. These resources will include high-throughput genotyping, mutation and polymorphism detection, physical mapping, sequencing and expression analysis.

Arkansas Center for Pain Research
The Arkansas Center for Pain Research includes a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists who are focusing their efforts on the following four areas: 1) evaluating the effectiveness of drug and non-drug therapies for pain relief in children; 2) investigating how early painful experiences can alter adult pain thresholds, coping behaviors, and the efficacy of analgesics, and can lead to the development of chronic pain syndromes; 3) elucidating the mechanisms underlying “hypersensitivity phenomenon” noted from the behaviors of young infants and animals and correlated with neurophysiological changes in the spinal cord and higher brain centers; and 4) defining the long-term effects of repetitive pain during infancy, and their impact on endocrine, immune, psychosocial, and cognitive function (attention, memory, learning) in later life.

Center for Respiratory, Asthma and Allergic Disorders
The Center for Respiratory, Asthma and Allergic Disorders addresses the childhood disease asthma. Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. This center will provide the faculty and facilities to focus upon three major needs: a) excellence in clinical care for children with asthma; b) effective and innovative education of patients, parents and referring physicians in the state; and c) a true asthma research center with the capability of participating in national multi-center studies and conducting much needed rural healthcare delivery research.

Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center
The Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center is currently one of six national human nutrition centers funded through the United States Department of Agriculture. This center focuses specifically on diet and nutritional status of human development, using state-of-the-art procedures, equipment and facilities to determine how dietary factors and nutrition can affect brain development, learning, and attention span, as well as how early dietary intervention can prevent diseases of development and aging. The Nutrition Center collaborates with the Delta Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative (Delta Project). The Delta Project is a multi-year, multi-university endeavor to improve the nutrition of poverty-stricken residents of the Mississippi Delta region.