NIH Launches National Consortium to Transform
Clinical Research
Bethesda, Md. — National Institutes of Health
(NIH) Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., today announced the launch
of a national consortium that will transform how clinical and translational
research is conducted, ultimately enabling researchers to provide
new treatments more efficiently and quickly to patients. This new
consortium, funded through Clinical and Translational Science Awards
(CTSAs), begins with 12 academic health centers (AHCs) located
throughout the nation. An additional 52 AHCs are receiving planning
grants to help them prepare applications to join the consortium.
When fully implemented in 2012, about 60 institutions will be linked
together to energize the discipline of clinical and translational
science.
“The development of this consortium represents the first systematic
change in our approach to clinical research in 50 years,” said
Zerhouni. “Working together, these sites will serve as discovery
engines that will improve medical care by applying new scientific
advances to real world practice. We expect to see new approaches
reach underserved populations, local community organizations, and
health care providers to ensure that medical advances are reaching
the people who need them.”
Applicants were encouraged to develop institutes, centers or departments
for these awards and were challenged to devise innovative and far-reaching
approaches to build academic homes for clinical and translational
science. In response, the CTSA institutions are planning to:
- Develop better designs for clinical trials to ensure that patients
with rare as well as common diseases benefit from new medical
therapies
- Produce enriched environments to educate and develop the next
generation of researchers trained in the complexities of translating
research discoveries into clinical trials and ultimately into
practice
- Design new and improved clinical research informatics tools
- Expand outreach efforts to minority and medically underserved
communities
- Assemble interdisciplinary teams that cover the complete spectrum
of research — biology, clinical medicine, dentistry, nursing,
biomedical engineering, genomics, and population sciences
- Forge new partnerships with private and public health care
organizations
“The impact of the CTSA consortium will be far greater than the
number of awards made,” said Barbara M. Alving, M.D., NCRR Acting
Director. “We’re already seeing transformative changes and new
partnerships developing at institutions as they prepare to participate.
This consortium will spur innovation, integration, inclusion, and
dissemination — not only among institutions receiving these
awards — but at all organizations involved in health care
throughout the country.”
The CTSA initiative grew out of the NIH commitment to re-engineer
the clinical research enterprise, one of the key objectives of
the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The CTSA consortium will
be led by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a
part of the NIH. Funding for the CTSA initiative comes from redirecting
existing clinical and translational programs, including Roadmap
funds. Total first year funding for the awards announced today
will be approximately $100 million. When fully implemented in 2012,
the initiative is expected to provide a total of $500 million annually
to 60 academic health centers.
The following institutions will receive the first set of awards
for nearly a five-year period:
Columbia University Health Sciences (New York, N.Y.)
Duke University (Durham N.C.)
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine (Rochester, Minn.)
Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, Ore.)
Rockefeller University (New York, N.Y.)
University of California, Davis (Davis. Calif.)
University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, Calif.)
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pa.)
University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
University of Rochester (Rochester, N.Y.)
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (Houston,
Texas)
Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)
For complete project descriptions, please visit http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/ncrrprog/roadmap/CTSA_9-2006.asp.
In addition, the list of planning grant recipients is available
at http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/ncrrprog/roadmap/CTSA_Planning_9-2006.asp.
A second Request for Applications (RFA) for CTSAs has been issued,
calling for the next round of submissions to be made by January
17, 2007, with awards expected in fall 2007. The RFA is available
at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RM-07-002.html.
The CTSA initiative was developed with extensive input from the
research community. For more information, visit http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/clinicaldiscipline.asp
The NIH Roadmap for Medical Research is a series of far-reaching
initiatives designed to transform the Nation's medical research
capabilities and speed the movement of scientific discoveries
from the bench to the bedside. It provides a framework of the
priorities the NIH must address in order to optimize its entire
research portfolio and lays out a vision for a more efficient
and productive system of medical research. Additional information
about the NIH Roadmap can be found at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov.
NCRR provides laboratory scientists and clinical researchers
with the environments and tools they need to understand, detect,
treat, and prevent a wide range of diseases. With this support,
scientists make biomedical discoveries, translate these findings
to animal-based studies, and then apply them to patient-oriented
research. Ultimately, these advances result in cures and treatments
for both common and rare diseases. Through collaborations and
networks, NCRR connects researchers with one another, and with
patients and communities across the nation. These connections
bring together innovative research teams and the power of shared
resources, multiplying the opportunities to improve human health.
For more information, visit www.ncrr.nih.gov.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's
Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and
Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting
and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research,
and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and
its programs, visit www.nih.gov. |