The University of Iowa (Ul) Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) is ideally positioned to accomplish the ultimate goal of the CTSA initiative - to promote the true translation of research from bench to bedside, to community, to individual patient, and back. Since its creation, the ICTS has successfully engaged investigators, trainees, and research staff from all 11 Ul colleges -- Medicine, Public Health, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Engineering, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Education, Law, Business, and Graduate. The ICTS also crafted collaborations with Iowa State University, the VA Midwest Health Care Network, the Iowa Primary Care Association, and clinical networks that care for rural and other underserved populations and that support T2 - T4 translational studies. This application will further enhance our infrastructures, facilitate more sophisticated translational research, position the ICTS to assume an even greater institutional role in improving regulatory procedures, and increase access of our collaborating organizations to clinical research support and data warehousing and access of other CTSA institutions to our unique resources. The four aims related to these efforts are to: 1) Catalyze innovative T1 - T4 Science through: new pilot programs to support interdisciplinary high impact research; facilitation of new collaborations between bench, clinical, and population-based scientists; enhancement of the environment for team science; and a new program in drug discovery and development. 2) Improve research efficiency through: novel approaches to increase subject recruitment and decrease data collection costs; adoption of shared IRB arrangements and master contracts; supporting NIH multi-site research networks; and tightly linking program evaluation data to decisions about resource allocation. 3) Create and nurture partnerships with: Ul research centers to leverage resources and avoid duplication of services; regional healthcare providers to expand opportunities for T2 - T4 research; other CTSA institutions to disseminate novel Ul products and import promising scientific and administrative approaches; and private biotechnology firms. 4) Build dynamic educational, service, and informatics infrastructures to: support the training needs of translational investigators across the career spectrum; support the research services needs of T1 - T4 investigators; and enable highly productive, safe and secure research.

U54TR001013

2014-09-01

2015-08-31