eRoundup for 07/17/09

Seven institutions will receive $171 million from the NIH over five years to help researchers turn laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients. Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) will be made to seven more academic health centers, bringing the consortium to 46 member institutions. This national network of medical research institutions, including the ACTSI, is working to accelerate the process that develops laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, to engage communities in clinical research and to train a new generation of clinical and translational researchers. Launched in 2006, this network now includes awardees in 26 states. When the program is fully implemented, it will support approximately 60 CTSAs across the nation. The institutions receiving new CTSA funding are the Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston), Mount Sinai School of Medicine (New York City), New York University School of Medicine (New York City), University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Little Rock), University of Florida (Gainesville), University of Illinois at Chicago, and University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston). View descriptions of the CTSA awardees here. These seven institutions join the University of Cincinnati, announced earlier this year, as the 2009 CTSA recipients. The 2009 CTSA grants expand state representation in the consortium to Arkansas, Florida, and South Carolina. 

The first CTSA progress report highlights the innovations, collaborations, and partnerships that emerged from the CTSA consortium from 2006 through 2008. Included are summaries of how CTSAs are enabling researchers to work in unprecedented ways to advance medical research across many disease areas and conditions, including cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. To view the full report, visit www.ncrr.nih.gov/ctsa/progress_report_2009. (See pages 7, 26, and 27 for ACTSI-related stories.)

Emory University has completed an agreement with Vanderbilt University that allows the ACTSI to participate in ResearchMatch.org. The National Recruitment Registry or ResearchMatch.org is a national CTSA Consortium effort led by Vanderbilt University that provides a national volunteer registry for the purpose of recruitment for clinical studies at any participating institution throughout the United States. ResearchMatch.org is a web-based registry for volunteers who are willing to participate in studies conducted by clinical and translational investigators that are relevant and advance the health and well-being of the nation. This CTSA-wide recruitment registry initiative will be launched in September 2009. Any institution affiliated with the ACTSI is eligible and will be granted access to the ResearchMatch.org site.  For more information on the initiative please click here.

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A new fertility preservation RFA, Fertility Preservation Research: Advancing Beyond Technology (R01) (RFA-HD-09-009), has been published by the NIH and CDC. Please click here http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HD-09-009.html for details. The application is due on October 20. 

AHRQ invites applications to develop a prospective clinical registry of orthopedic devices, drugs, and procedures through a practice-based research collaborative and clinical and outcomes data resource (P50 grant mechanism). The goal of this registry initiative is to support the development of a sustainable data infrastructure and to conduct rigorous clinical and scientific research including comparative effectiveness and safety research.  AHRQ envisions utilizing a practice based orthopedic registry across a broad provider network as one of the potentially most effective and productive approaches to develop scientific evidence regarding the short and long term benefits and harms of implantable orthopedic devices and other related services. The registry will be a model and basis for other national device and procedure registries and will actively disseminate study results into clinical practice. The application is due on September 23. For more information please click here.

Connecting Point, the 2009 Georgia Cancer Research Symposium, hosted by the Georgia Cancer Coalition will be held on November 5-6, at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel in Athens, GA. All Georgia colleagues in cancer research are invited to attend. Registration is $50 or $25 for students. The symposium will include a tour of the UGA Complex Carbohydrate Research Center which is the home of the UGA Cancer Center. The goal of the 2009 Cancer Research Symposium is to provide a forum to exchange ideas, information, and best practices to further collaborative efforts to combat cancer in Georgia. For more information please click here.

The GA Tech/Emory Department of Biomedical Engineering is looking for projects, ideas, problems, and opportunities from any member of the medical/research community for Senior Design Project I and II (BMED 4600 & 4601). The Senior Design Project course uses biomedical engineering and development, FDA regulations and ISO standards, business and management processes, and clinical projects to complete submitted projects and create products. The students start with a problem statement and during the course of an academic year GA Tech's director of design instruction, Franklin Bost, MBA, IDSA, guides the students through the process. Industry advisors and non-profits from around the U.S. suggest global health, medical device, basic science, and clinical projects. The course is two semesters, with project teams beginning each fall, spring, and summer. Students work in teams of four on clinical or research relevant projects with medical, clinical, or PhD project advisors. The course produces BME industry-ready engineers, complete with work skills and technical, business, and clinical literacy. Bost invites anyone with a project idea to contact him. Note: if you would like to be an advisor but have several ideas (or no specific ideas), a team can meet with you to formulate a project idea through clinical observation and idea discussion. Please click here for more information about the courses and here for an idea submission form. Send all forms and questions to L. Franklin Bost, MBA, IDSA. 

Current medical students at Emory University School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), and other health professional trainees pursuing doctoral degrees in public health, biomedical engineering, nursing and other fields at Emory, MSM and GA Tech can apply for short-term (3 month) stipends ($5,190 of salary support) funded by the Research Education, Training and Career Development (RETCD) program of the ACTSI. This mechanism will support medical and graduate students who are interested in a short course program focused on clinical and/or translational research under the mentorship of a successful, federally funded faculty mentor. Application for the short-term training program includes several components that should be submitted electronically by emailing TL1Applications@erooms.emory.edu. For more information please visit www.atlantactsi.org/areas/retcd/documents/TL1_three-month_program-9-30-08_FINAL.pdf.

The Clinical Research Center (CRC) at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) was established in 1996 in order to provide the infrastructure necessary for faculty to conduct clinical research. The CRC is a hospital-based ACTSI Clinical Interaction Site and is the first free-standing outpatient research facility of its kind in the nation to receive accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. The center has been successful in developing a clinical research infrastructure that is uniquely suited to the pursuit of clinical and translational research in minority and underrepresented communities. The center provides comprehensive support for clinical investigation with its various core resources and facilities. These resources include a noninvasive cardiovascular and hemodynamic core laboratory, fully equipped private examination rooms, analytical and protein profiling laboratory, a biostatistical and data management core, a nursing core, a recruitment/retention core responsible for all study participant enrollment activities, a novel community physician's network, and a new bionutrition core. The unit provides the resources necessary for clinical research at MSM. For more information please click here. To learn how to submit a protocol click here.