Kimberly Ovitt, Director of Communication & Institutional Advancement
(480)727-8688 | kimberly.ovitt@asu.edu
Grant lays groundwork for a statewide application for a multi-million dollar Clinical and Translational Science Award
Phoenix, AZ, October 12, 2006—Arizona has received a planning grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support a statewide program to increase patient access to new medical breakthroughs via innovative, multi-institutional partnerships. If the planning process is successful, Arizona will pursue a multi-million dollar Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA). This prestigious and competitive grant from the NIH is designed to further develop statewide collaborations, programs, and research projects focused on translational science.
Co-principal investigators for the grant are TGen’s Scientific Director, Jeffrey Trent, and Keith Joiner, Dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine. They are joined on the grant’s Executive Committee by George Poste, Director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, and Vicki Chandler, Director of the Bio5 Institute at the University of Arizona.
Poste said that maximizing the potential of the planning grant will require demonstrating that Arizona has the talent pool needed to conduct translational research, as well as the ability to work seamlessly across multiple institutions.
On October 3, the NIH announced it was launching a national consortium with a goal of ultimately enabling researchers to provide new treatments more efficiently and quickly to patients. They launched the effort with large awards to 12 academic health centers throughout the nation, including the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, which received a $72 million CTSA grant last week. These centers form the foundation of the consortium. An additional 52 centers, including the Arizona coalition, were awarded planning grants to help them prepare applications to join this consortium.
When fully implemented in 2012, the Clinical and Translational Science initiative is expected to provide a total of $500 million annually to 60 academic health centers. In his announcement, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., said, “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.”
John Murphy, president and CEO of the Flinn Foundation, said Arizona will use its planning grant to build upon existing programs in basic research and translational science. “The grant will allow Arizona’s medical school, research institutes, and principal teaching hospitals to join forces in serving patients and training a new generation of investigators in interdisciplinary clinical research,” he said.
“It is remarkable the number of individual groups across Arizona that are part of this—including universities, research institutes and health care providers,” said Trent. This level of interaction and interface is simply remarkable and adds to the power of our potential.”
Participating institutions include:
Each month, innovative research from the Biodesign Institute appears in the world’s premier scientific journals. Many such studies have graced the covers of these journals, showcasing Biodesign research ranging from water remediation to nanometer-scale structures built from DNA.
Alternate Lifestyles: Searching for Life in the Shadow Biosphere
Tiny Legos That Build Themselves: The Magic of DNA Nanostructures
Sign up to receive ASU Biodesign Institute email updates | See a sample »