NIH Releases CTSA Progress Report

The National Institutes of Health has released CTSA Progress Report 2009-2011, the latest overview of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, which supports 60 biomedical institutions nationwide in efforts to transform the clinical and translational research arena.

Although the CTSA initiative is still relatively new, there are numerous examples that demonstrate the significant scientific impact and promise of the program. The 2009–2011 report illustrates how the CTSA-funded institutions are supporting discoveries for health locally, regionally and nationally.

Referencing the development and implementation of new informatics tools to help researchers and institutions collaborate, the report highlights CTSI's work on UCSF Profiles. According to the report, UCSF Profiles "enables researchers to find experts in various disease fields and to connect with other researchers, mentors, community or industry partners. UCSF Profiles can search for presentations, share mentoring capabilities, and enable campus administrators to easily build contact lists of targeted groups of experts. The team is working with partners to develop a library of research applications that can be shared. UCSF also is extending this tool to integrate with other applications to enable researchers to connect and share information in real-time across web, desktop and mobile channels."

The report summary notes:

"CTSA institutions provide critical infrastructure support, and working together as a national consortium, CTSA teams are removing barriers to research, streamlining the research process and meeting the needs of scientists. CTSA institutions support innovative multidisciplinary team science, train investigators in clinical research, and foster dynamic research partnerships and collaborations to move science into practices that may overcome many of the world's most challenging health problems. By embracing technology and using informatics tools to connect scientists and data, CTSA-funded institutions are well-positioned to meet our current and future health challenges. This solid foundation coupled with the flexibility needed to address future health needs puts CTSA-supported academic health centers at the forefront of efforts to turn discovery into health."

Click here to review the full report.

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