Abstract ED05-02: The Clinical and Translational Science Award Program: Transdisciplinary teams in cancer prevention research
Authors: Dubinett Steven M. 
Published: January 2014

National CTSA Program

The Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program supports a national consortium of 60 medical research institutions that are transforming the way biomedical research is conducted. Its goals are to accelerate the translation of laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, to engage communities in clinical research efforts, and to train a new generation of clinical and translational researchers. www.ctsacentral.org/ctsa-consortium

Launched in 2006 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the CTSA program has enabled innovative research teams to speed discovery and advance science aimed at improving our nation's health. Led by NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the CTSA program encourages collaborative teams of investigators to tackle complex health and research challenges and then find ways to turn these discoveries into practical solutions for patients. These teams are already making progress across a broad range of diseases.

Team Science

The full complexities of the biological, technological and public health problems in cancer prevention are not effectively addressed by individual investigators working in isolation. It has been suggested that the challenges posed will require cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration that extends to long term interactions among groups of investigators in an approach that has been termed team science. At UCLA, our Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is the key to transforming our environment to establish transdisciplinary team science as our operating principle in clinical and translational investigation.

CTSA Consortia

Together, CTSAs are working on a national coordinated approach to recruit, educate, train and promote the development of clinical and translational investigators conducting research to improve human health. One example of this is the University of California Biomedical Research, Acceleration, Integration & Development (UC BRAID). The five UC medical campus CTSAs, in collaboration with the UC Office of the President have identified system-wide collaboration in biomedical research as an opportunity to enhance clinical and translational research efforts. In response, they launched an initiative in 2010 to identify policy changes and areas of collaboration to accelerate biomedical research across the UC biomedical campuses. The UC BRAID program, is this effort to accelerate clinical and translational research. Working groups in 1) Biospecimen banking, 2) Contracting, 3) Drug and Devise Discovery and Development 4) Informatics, and 5) IRB harmonization have been developed to identify short- and long-term solutions to shared challenges. These groups have been working to identify policy changes, new infrastructure, or processes that will reduce the barriers to clinical and translational research. http://www.ucbraid.org/

Examples will be provided illustrating team science among investigators as well as institutional consortia that facilitate robust infrastructure for clinical and translational investigation.

Citation Format: Steven M. Dubinett. The Clinical and Translational Science Award Program: Transdisciplinary teams in cancer prevention research. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2012 Oct 16-19; Anaheim, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Prev Res 2012;5(11 Suppl):Abstract nr ED05-02.