CTSA UM1 State University of New York at Buffalo

The University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Buffalo Translational Consortium (BTC), the region’s leading academic, clinical and research institutions, with influential community partners has established genuine, enduring partnerships to implement translational science strategies to improve health in our region. Buffalo, NY, the second largest city in New York State (population 276,807), located in Erie County (population 950,683) is one of the poorest cities in the US (31% in poverty). Our CTSI engages all people, including those who often do not have the opportunity to benefit from participating in clinical research and who experience adverse health outcomes. The University at Buffalo CTSI has a vision to advance and accelerate clinical and translational science to improve health in our community and the nation. The CTSI has catalyzed a complete transformation of research in the region by overcoming clinical and translational science (CTS) barriers. Hub clinical trials have more than doubled since our CTSA was first funded in 2015 and our hub achieved our highest levels ever in participants enrolled in clinical research in 2023. Our recruitment team works tirelessly with hub researchers to increase enrollment of people who often do not participate in clinical studies, reaching 24.2% this funding cycle. Our community partnerships have enabled us to have a measurable impact in responding to adverse health outcomes in our region. We will build on this extraordinary momentum with bold, ambitious CTS initiatives with an overarching focus on improving public health. We will develop and test new CTS tools in each module to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical translation, engage community members in all phases of research, launch a new Dissemination & Implementation Core that will center the needs of the community, develop a novel curriculum to advance the role of community health workers on research teams, and many others. Our CTSI has four ambitious but achievable aims:1) Grow our enduring community partnerships and establish new partnerships to build collaborations, accelerate translation, and develop new approaches to improve health in our region. 2) Develop novel translational science methods to improve efficiency and effectiveness of clinical translation and work with other CTSA hubs to assess, adopt and share successful methods locally and nationally. 3) Inspire, train and mentor a multidisciplinary workforce in translational science, team science, data science, and implementation science with a focus on accelerating the translation of discoveries that will improve health in our region and the nation. And 4) innovate and disseminate novel informatics tools and methods to advance clinical and translational science locally and nationally leading to improved population health.