Johns Hopkins University (JHU) of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, has received a grant of 100 million US dollars to improve the speed and efficiency with which medical innovations become new treatments for patients.
The money, which is spread over 5 years, will establish the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR). In effect it will support over 100 faculty members throughout JHU, including the schools of Medicine, Engineering, Nursing and Public Health.
The job of the ICTR will be to help JHU researchers speed up and improve the process of getting promising research from the lab to the clinic and then into the community.
Dr Daniel Ford, vice dean for clinical investigation at the JHU School of Medicine, said the grant recognized the University’s commitment to innovation:
“This grant is an acknowledgement of the breadth and quality of clinical and translational research here at Johns Hopkins,” said Ford.
The award is part of a program called the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) that is led by the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
It marks JHU’s entry, along with 11 other us academic institutions also receiving CTSA grants, into a growing consortium aimed at transforming clinical and translational research.
The first round of CTSA funding was announced last October, when awards were granted to the first 12 members of the consortium.
This grant to JHU and the other 11 centres is part of the second round of awards.
The CTSA embodies one of the principal objectives of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research: to re-engineer clinical research in the US.
The aims of the CTSA are to:
- Stimulate new ways of doing clinical and translational research.
- Design new information tools for clinical research.
- Build interdisciplinary teams from all areas of medical research.
- Help researchers navigate the complex process of research and development with improved training and mentoring.
- Encourage private and public health care organizations to forge new partnerships.
Money for the CTSA comes from funds under the NIH Roadmap and from redirecting existing programmes.
The overall amount of funding available for CTSA awards over a five year budget period will be in the region of 574 million US dollars said NIH Director Dr Elias A Zerhounia in a statement released by the NIH on Tuesday.
The 11 other academic medical institutions who with JHU have joined the CTSA consortium and been awarded grants in this second round are:
- Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
- University of Chicago, Illinois.
- University of Iowa, Iowa City.
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
- University of Texas Southwest Medical Center, Dallas.
- University of Washington, Seattle.
- University of Wisconsin, Madison.
- Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
- Washington University, St Louis, Missouri.
- Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York.
When completed in 2012, the consortium will comprise 60 institutions which together will “energize the discipline of clinical and translational science” said the NIH statement.
Click here for more information about CTSA.
Written by: Catharine Paddock