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Registered nurse Rachel Pryor had collected 2,000 COVID-19 antibody tests and 2,000 surveys. And she needed to know, in the early weeks of the pandemic, what they said about the risk of the novel coronavirus for health care providers. “The prevalence of antibodies in providers was one way for the health care system, and the community in general, to better understand the prevalence of COVID-19,”

Laura Calvi, M.D., a prominent cancer researcher at the University of Rochester's Wilmot Cancer Institute, recently achieved what a lot of researchers only dream of: Her years of lab research have translated to a clinical trial that has begun to benefit patients. With the help of a UR CTSI Incubator award, Calvi’s discoveries from the lab are starting to have a tangible impact on patients with

Monica Albertie leads a small but mighty team of four research operations and program managers at Mayo Clinic, and they have a very important charge: Keep Mayo health equity research running full steam at all times. The team, part of the Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research, supports dozens of research teams across Mayo Clinic. The team helps researchers write protocols and

When COVID-19 hit Western New York in March 2020, local leaders tasked University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Steering Committee Member Peter Winkelstein, MD, with leading modeling efforts to project the path of the pandemic. These efforts occurred in many CTSA hubs as a response to the onslaught of COVID. Here, Winkelstein and his team discuss how its work helped influence behaviors and, ultimately, save lives.

Wake Forest demonstrates how a health care system can more quickly turn research outcomes into patient care with a new blood pressure measurement protocol that may help prevent strokes and cardiovascular events.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid misuse has continued unabated in the United States, with an estimated 2.5 million or more Americans suffering from opioid use disorder. Most people treated for the disorder are given medications, such as buprenorphine, that activate opioid receptors. But there is disagreement about whether it’s safe to prescribe buprenorphine for people who also take

New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that three new, fast-spreading variants of the virus that cause COVID-19 can evade antibodies that work against the original form of the virus that sparked the pandemic. With few exceptions, whether such antibodies were produced in response to vaccination or natural infection, or were purified antibodies intended for

One could say she has community in her heart. Rev. Dr. Paulette Sankofa, EdD, grew up in the St. Louis West End and remembers the tight community connections, particularly among older adults that was commonplace at that time. It is this sense of community and respect for seniors instilled as a young child that has shaped much of her life’s work. Today, Sankofa is the founder and executive director

For certain blood cancers, such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), deciding whether patients need an aggressive treatment typically hinges on a set of lab tests to identify genetic changes. Some of these tests rely on technology that was invented more than 60 years ago and has been used clinically for the past three decades.

Equipping Faculty at Wake Forest and Beyond When asked the vision behind CTSI’s Mentor Academy, Claudia Olivier, PhD responded: “Every mentor needs some level of training on how to be a good—a great—mentor.” Dr. Olivier serves as co-facilitator of the 6-month Mentor Academy cohorts alongside faculty Program Leader Debra Diz, PhD. Initially created for mid-career faculty, the Mentor Academy has

U.S. public health officials report that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities that have been medically underserved, leading to higher infection and mortality rates. A Mayo Clinic study recently published in the American Journal of Public Health says easy access to rapid testing is needed to combat disparities, and a community-driven and culturally tailored strategy is

A team of UC Davis Health scientists is working to identify factors that could predict brachial plexus birth injury (BPBI), the leading cause of infants’ upper extremity paralysis. They are developing a predictive risk model of maternal and hospital factors associated with the condition. Their work seeks to inform better prevention strategies and shift the current standard practices for this

Neuropathic pain affects millions of Americans every year. This fact combined with the nationwide crisis of opioid misuse reinforces the need for safer and more effective therapies to help those suffering from chronic pain. In tandem with efforts from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and in an effort to advance research in this arena, in 2017 the ICTS offered a new funding

A trainee in our CT Research Academy broadens her research career in pulmonary hypertension and expands her connections to others in the field. A pulmonary vascular disease fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Jenna McNeill, MD, is a trainee in our Clinical and Translational Research Academy, a two-year advanced training that offers a pathway to conduct independent research for early

A clinical fellow in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at Boston Children's Hospital learns to navigate launching a research career in gastroenterology as part of Harvard Catalyst's Clinical/Translational Research Academy. Lauren Veit Collen, MD, is a clinical fellow in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at Boston Children’s Hospital. Since 2019, she has participated in our two

OCTRI Scholar Dr. David Sheridan (left) and Dr. Matthew Hansen (right), both OHSU Emergency Medicine physicians, were awarded OCTRI Biomedical Innovation Program (BIP) funding and project support in 2018 to develop a new bedside technology for quickly detecting sepsis using an accurate and objective measure of capillary refill time (CRT). In the last 3 years, Drs. Sheridan and Hansen leveraged

Melissa A. Haendel, PhD, has been named Chief Research Informatics Officer (CRIO) for the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, a newly created position responsible for transforming the campus use of information and information systems to accelerate biomedical discoveries, streamline health system operations, and continuously improve patient care. The CRIO office will lead efforts to

The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) continues to grow as a robust EHR data resource, now with over 3 million persons represented and 4 billion rows of data from more than 42 sites. Currently, 24 multidisciplinary Domain Teams composed of clinical and subject matter experts, statisticians, informaticists, and machine learning specialists are addressing the most pressing clinical questions

Researchers like Susan Mohammed study the formation and functioning of teams, a field called team science. Team science is essential because understanding team dynamics strengthens team member unity. The application of team science tools and techniques builds strong team foundations for success. Mohammed, a professor of psychology, provides team science consultations to Penn State research teams

Several University of Illinois Chicago faculty members have addressed the issue of how to ethically conduct research with Black populations. In their paper “Ethics of Research at the Intersection of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter: A Call to Action,” authors Natasha Crooks, an assistant professor, Phoenix Matthews, a professor, both of the UIC College of Nursing, and Geri Donenberg, director of

The Cohort Exploration Dashboard is now available on the home page of the N3C website. This easy access dashboard displays high-level information from the N3C Data Enclave to showcase harmonized metrics from electronic health records of institutions across the country. You can view geographical locations of contributing sites and distributions across age and sex, race and ethnicity, and

Look for the big gold “Ask N3C” button on the far right-hand side of the N3C homepage for full support of all your questions and requests. N3C provides support for ALL types of questions, including account issues, Data Use Request (DUR) status, synthetic data questions, publication submissions, meeting changes, Domain Team support, and so much more! Please submit a ticket for the most expedient

Virginia Commonwealth University Wright Center Translational Scholar Caitlin Martin, M.D., MPH, joined one of her patients, Nichole Hollie, for a conversation about addiction treatment and recovery in February. Hollie sought care at VCU Health’s OB MOTIVATE Clinic, designed for women to address substance use disorders before, during and after pregnancy. Martin was her provider. “The care I

Oanh Meyer, assistant professor of neurology at UC Davis School of Medicine, has a long history of working with the Asian American communities in Sacramento on mental health and Alzheimer’s disease issues. With her team in the Diversity and Disparities Lab, she engages in community outreach efforts to better understand and fight health disparities. In her line of work, she has seen a great need in

The CTRFP is the largest internal grant funding program of the ICTS. Applicants are required to submit proposals for projects that promote the translation of scientific discoveries into improvements in human health. For 2021, awards were considered across three project categories: clinical/translational, community-engaged research, and biostatistics, epidemiology, and research design.

Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute released the latest episode of its Engage Podcast featuring research into the use of saliva to diagnose medical conditions. Dr. Steve Hicks, an associate professor of pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine, discusses his work into the use of saliva to diagnose concussion, autism, and COVID-19 severity in children. These tests provide an

The SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus behind the current pandemic, infects humans by binding its surface-exposed spike proteins to ACE2 receptors exposed on the cell membranes. Upon a vaccination or a real infection, it takes several weeks before the immunity develops antibodies that can selectively bind to these spike proteins. Such antibody-labeled viruses are neutralized by the natural killer and

“The only way forward is to control this by vaccination.” — William Powderly, MD, Director, Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In terms of healthcare, one of the most remarkable inventions begat by the pandemic is something called the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). The vision of the scientists and researchers behind the N3C is to turn massive amounts of already available data into new knowledge urgently needed to study COVID-19 and identify potential treatments

Manipulating the production of new neurons can improve cognition in animal models of the disease, raising the possibility that figuring out a way for humans to make more neurons could make a difference for people with dementia. Abby Olena, The Scientist Charlie Arber, a stem cell biologist at University College London, works with induced pluripotent stem cell models of inherited forms of dementia