The Observer, October 5, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 6
Case to join national medical institution consortium
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Case Western Reserve University, in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and MetroHealth Medical Center, was recently the recipient of a generous National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant worth $64 million.
The purpose of the grant is for Case "to become part of a national consortium designed to transform how clinical and translational research is conducted, ultimately enabling researchers to provide new treatments more efficiently and quickly to patients," according to the Case Daily article.
The consortium, formed in 2006, is funded through NIH's Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) and consisted of 12 academic health centers nationwide initially.
In collaboration with the other medical centers in the area, Case will attempt to build a research infrastructure that offers research training for undergraduate students as well as junior faculty members. Each medical center in the area will focus on one aspect of research as it pertains to the institutions and the community.
MetroHealth, for example, will focus on community engagement that "allows community members to become more active in the research and help guide it," said Ashwini Sehgal, who works in the Department of Nephrology at MetroHealth.
Other institutions will focus on other issues of research, but as a whole, they will work together to create strong bonds in the medical community of Cleveland.
"We will capitalize on the existing strength of research at Case Western Reserve University in partnership with our hospital colleagues to ultimately provide full service and integrated clinical translational research to improve the health of all of our patients and community," said Pamela B. Davis, dean and vice president for medical affairs of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and principal investigator on the CTSA.
"When it is fully operational, the CTSA will offer each research participant resources that span the range of support for technology-intensive studies that require the resources of our academic medical centers, to local practices and to the Cleveland community itself," said Davis.
Excited with the prospects of the NIH grant, Sehgal said, "This is just a great example of how institutions work together and address the biggest challenges facing our region."
The CTSA was awarded to Case and the aforementioned affiliates, which includes a multidisciplinary institutional K-12 program, three already existing General Clinical Research Centers, technical and statistical facilities, and all of the institutions' practice-based research networks.
Other effects of the grant include the addition of new resources by all of the affiliates, which include a redesigned bioinformatics infrastructure, a brand new MD/Ph.D. program in clinical research, more community partnership resources, and better coordinated bioethics and regulatory support resources.
"Translational and clinical research are the pathways linking new knowledge to medical advances to benefit our patients," said Richard A. Rudick, vice chair of the Neurological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and CTSA co-principal investigator. "The CTSA will transform the clinical research enterprise in Cleveland by training leaders for the nation's clinical research enterprise, by promoting collaborative research efforts across our region, and by developing advanced research infrastructure."
CTSA is an initiative spawned from NIH's increasing commitment to redesign current clinical research enterprises. When the initiative is in full swing in 2012, it will provide roughly $500 million over five years to more than 60 academic health centers.
