NCRR Promotes Collaboration through Consortia

Feature Article from the January 30, 2008 National Advisory Research Resources Council Meeting

By Frances McFarland Horne

Biomedical questions are complex, and researchers from different fields of science must work together to tackle them. Many of NCRR's programs encourage researchers to work as part of multidisciplinary teams. Directors from two extramural programs discussed collaboration at the January 30, 2008 meeting of the National Advisory Research Resources Council. The 18-member Council, which includes representatives from science, policy, law, economics, and management, provides the second level of grant reviews and advises NCRR on funding activities, policies, and programs.

The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program is transforming the conduct of clinical and translational research so that academic health centers across the country can work together to bring new treatments to patients more quickly and efficiently. Twenty-four awards were made in the first two years of the program; it ultimately will link about 60 institutions together to energize the discipline of clinical and translational science.

The CTSA program itself was designed as a consortium, with a committee for overall oversight, others to integrate clinical science and pediatrics, and steering groups focused on specific themes like informatics, evaluation, training, and community engagement.

At the Council meeting, CTSA directors discussed how the program has built on the work of institutional representatives to the Steering Committees that identified problems shared across the participating institutions—together with potential solutions. In the short time since the CTSA program began, the 24 sites have discovered what they have in common and how their unique abilities can complement each other. They are combining resources and teaching each other, ultimately to become a consortium that serves as the national voice for clinical and translational researchers.

"CTSAs have done an outstanding job in a short period of time," said Dr. Barbara Alving, NCRR Director. "They are attracting the attention of organizations other than NIH and extending the CTSA philosophy of interdisciplinary interactions and connectivity to generate partnerships and collaboration."

CTSAs have brought together people who were already doing clinical and translational science to devise and implement new resources. For example, Columbia University has developed Work Web, a database tool that puts its investigators in contact with others at Columbia who can help them turn their ideas into new research projects. Its multidisciplinary pilot awards program encourages the formation of new investigative teams of researchers who haven't worked together before. The University of Rochester has used its CTSA together with funds from New York State toward a new clinical science building with open spaces that encourage scientists and staff to interact. Mayo Clinic has promoted clinical and translational science for years, but its CTSA has galvanized the Clinic and brought new disciplines, such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and informatics, together with traditional disciplines, with the intent of moving toward personalized medicine.

"The CTSA has transformed the Clinic," said Dr. Robert Rizza, director of the Mayo Clinic CTSA. "The CTSA focused an organization that thought it was already focused."

But the CTSA sites have not only excited researchers in their own institutions and worked together with others; they've also strengthened existing networks or seeded new ones, widening their impact on research and medicine. The Vanderbilt CTSA enhances its longstanding alliance with Meharry Medical College, engaging in partnerships throughout Nashville and across Tennessee. The Emory University CTSA (in Atlanta) has strengthened the university's relationships with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse University, and it works with CDC, Kaiser Permanente, and the NCRR-supported Glycobiology Center at the University of Georgia. The Emory CTSA also participates in the Georgia Research Alliance, a state organization that promotes technology development and transfer.

The CTSAs also reach far beyond their academic labs and research centers and into their communities. The Columbia University CTSA has formed the Community Engagement Resource to foster research that's mutually beneficial to Columbia and the community. The Resource helps people in the community understand how their participation contributes to research. The Columbia University CTSA also received an NIH Roadmap National Clinical Research Associates award to build pilot models for clinical research in community medical practices. The University of Iowa CTSA has a community roundtable composed primarily of community health centers that serve minority groups. It's also working with health care entities across the state to develop best-practice guidelines. The CTSA at Johns Hopkins University has a support office focused on recruiting and retaining research participants and has formed a community research network with other area hospitals.

All these collaborations and networks will require informatics tools, so several CTSAs are enhancing existing tools or building new ones. For example, the Vanderbilt CTSA has StarBRITE, an electronic system designed to support research the way medical records support clinical care. REDCAP, a component of StarBRITE, is already used by hundreds of investigators across the country and around the world.

At the January 30 meeting, the Council also heard from directors in the National Primate Research Center (NPRC) program. For almost 50 years, the National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs) have assisted researchers, primarily those supported by NIH, who use nonhuman primates (NHPs) in their research. Eight NPRCs nationwide house several species of monkeys such as rhesus macaques and baboons, but they are more than animal care facilities. The NPRCs provide the specialized resources and intellectual infrastructure necessary for performing translational research using NHPs. These centers provide researchers samples and materials, train them in special techniques, help them design experiments, and work with them on pilot projects that jump-start fully funded research studies.

The directors discussed the NPRCs' contributions to biomedical science, and the theme of collaboration ran through each presentation. Each NPRC is itself a collaborative unit, employing experts in veterinary medicine, primatology, and animal husbandry, as well as in genetics, immunology, informatics, and other critical fields. Throughout their history, NPRCs have worked together on projects that influence research on human disease. They have developed primate models for atherosclerosis; energized HIV/AIDS research with the discovery of the simian form of the virus; discovered areas in the brain that are important for memory; established foundations for work on stem cells; and contributed to assisted reproductive technologies, gene therapy, and regenerative medicine.

Now the NPRCs are enhancing these interactions. They have established working groups to integrate their efforts and strengthen their collaborations even further, and they have begun to work with the Biomedical Informatics Research Network to meet information technology needs across the Centers.

Many NPRCs have already linked to other NIH-supported collaborations. The New England NPRC works with Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases and with two groups supported by NIAID: Centers for AIDS Research and the global Center for HIV-AIDS Vaccine Immunology. The California NPRC participates in the Center of Excellence in Translational Human Stem Cell Research, which is supported by NHLBI, NINDS, and NIDDK. NPRC directors have also met with officials from other NIH Institutes and Centers to let more researchers know what they have to offer. NPRCs are also linking with CTSAs. Five of the eight NPRCs are at institutions that also have CTSAs, and at some institutions, such as the University of California, Davis, CTSA and NPRC investigators serve on each other's leadership and advisory committees.

Council members recognized the NPRCs as critical resources, and were impressed by the CTSA directors' passion, enthusiasm, and innovation in building collaborations. The CTSA and NPRC programs are among many NCRR initiatives to encourage collaboration. These efforts, along with those by other NIH Institutes and Centers, will further the NCRR and NIH goal of transforming how science is carried out.