Clinical & Translational Science Training (CTST) Program
Timely, effective and innovative clinical and translational research requires health scientists rigorously trained in the intersections between basic science, clinical practice, and population health. The goal of CTST is to enhance clinical and translational research training and career development throughout UCSF. Originally funded by K30, Roadmap K12 and Roadmap T32 awards from NIH, the CTST program coordinates numerous didactic courses and mentored research programs that have trained more than 700 junior faculty, fellows, residents, and professional students over the past 5 years.
CTST components:
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Training in Clinical Research (TICR) offers a broad array of educational opportunities for junior faculty, fellows, and postdoctoral health science students. TICR is comprised of 27 graduate level courses in three major educational programs: The Summer Clinical Research Workshop (with 132 students enrolled in 2006-7); the 1-year Advanced Training in Clinical Research Certificate Program (ATCR, 26 students); the 2-year Master of Advanced Studies in Clinical Research (MAS-CR, 30 students). In addition to these educational programs, we advertise each quarter to the entire campus the opportunity to take individual courses “a la carte”, and we offer free grantwriting courses 3 times a year. A recent follow-up of our first class of master’s degree graduates revealed that all 11 have salaried faculty positions, with an average of 9.7 peer-reviewed publications (4.1 as first author) in the two years since graduation.
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The CTSA KL2 Scholars career development awards provide training, mentoring, infrastructure and protected time for junior faculty to pursue multidisciplinary clinical research. Clinical research is defined broadly, and includes translational research, patient-oriented research, clinical trials, epidemiologic research, and outcomes research. The program includes a master's degree in clinical research for those who do not have such training, a supportive environment, start-up research funds, 1/2 day each week of work-in-progress seminars, and access to core faculty who provide expertise and guidance in research design, measurement and questionnaire methods, study coordination, data management, statistical analysis, publishing and presenting research, and grant writing. In 2007 the KL2 program is in its third year and has 31 scholars—22 with salary from the CTSA KL2 program and 9 with salary from K23’s and other K12 sources.
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Training in Implementation and Dissemination Sciences offers courses, a track within TICR's Master's Degree Program in Clinical Research, and the Program in Translating Evidence into Practice, Policy and Public Health for health professionals conducting IDS-oriented work in the community.
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The Resident Training Program was created to meet needs revealed in campus-wide surveys of residents and of residency program directors. A one-month intensive version of the Designing Clinical Research course will be presented twice a year (in August and February), scheduled to optimize convenience across residency programs. Each resident will produce a 5-page protocol for a feasible research project or pilot study. The program supports an annual interdepartmental Resident Research Symposium and provides pilot funding for resident research projects.
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The Pathways to Careers in Clinical and Translational Research (PACCTR) program fosters the incorporation of clinical research training in the core curriculum of all medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy pre-doctoral students. PACCTR includes (1) the CTST TL 1 program, which supports students from all four UCSF schools for 2-month, 3-month and one-year fellowships in clinical and translational research; and (2) the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Research Fellowship program which supports UCSF and other U.S. medical students for one-year research fellowships at UCSF and abroad. UCSF medical students participating in the one-year program will be asked to write a thesis based on their work and will graduate with an “MD with Thesis” designation. These fellowships are designed to stimulate students to develop careers in clinical and translational research.
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The Pre-Health Undergraduate Program (PUP) is a summer clinical research training program for undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), who are planning to attend dental, medical, nursing, pharmacy or physical therapy professional schools after graduation, and who have an interest in a career in clinical research. UCB students will be paired with a UCSF professional student who is enrolled in the course. The purpose of the course is to train UCB students to evaluate the medical literature, to design clinical and translational research studies, and to encourage long-term collaborations between UCSF and UCB students.
People
The CTST is directed by Deborah Grady MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research. For general information about CTST contact Chris Ireland, Deputy Director, cireland@psg.ucsf.edu.
The TICR Program is directed by Jeffrey Martin MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Attending Physician at San Francisco General Hospital. The Associate Director is Mark Pletcher MD, MPH, the Deputy Director is Chris Ireland MPH, the Head of the Division of Clinical Epidmiology is Tom Newman MD, MPH, and 80 other faculty participate as course directors, lecturers or section leaders. For applications and other information see our website or contact Olivia DeLeon, Olivia@epi.ucsf.edu.
The CTSA K12 Scholars Program is directed by Stephen Hulley MD, MPH, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The Associate Director is Ralph Gonzales MD, MSPH, the Deputy Director is Chris Ireland MPH, and associated faculty are Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo PhD, MD, MAS-CR David Glidden PhD, Chuck McCulloch PhD, Dennis Osmond PhD, Anita Stewart PhD, and Eric Vittinghoff PhD. For applications and other information see our website or contact Allison Deneen, adeneen@epi.ucsf.edu.
Training in Implementation and Dissemination Sciences is directed by Ralph Gonzales MD, MSPH, Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The Co-Director is Margaret Handley PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine.
The Resident Training Program is directed by Douglas Bauer MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Research for the Division of General Internal Medicine. The Co-directors are Emily Von Scheven MD (Pediatrics), Miriam Kuppermann PhD, MPH (Obstetrics & Gynecology and Epidemiology & Biostatistics) and Jeff Kohlwes MD (Medicine). For applications to take Designing Clinical Research course see our website, and for other information contact Olivia DeLeon at Olivia@epi.ucsf.edu.
The PACCTR is directed by Joel Palefsky MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research. The Associate Program Director is Peter Chin-Hong MD. The Designing Clinical Research (DCR) Course Director is Tom Novotny MD, MPH. See the PACCTR website for information about fellowships, or contact Cecily Hunter.