Clinical and Translational Science Center

PROJECT SUMMARY/SUMMARY The Weill Cornell Medicine Clinical and Translational Science Center’s (CTSC) future strategies are built on the considerable accomplishments achieved over the last 14 years, providing the translation of research and the generation of research ideas that pave the way for future innovations despite the effect of the pandemic on the medical school, with the city in lockdown for over 14 months. The plans for the next five years are devised to continue to develop the existing infrastructure and its initiatives, to add new ones, to enhance networking. In so doing, we will continue to advance translational science to improve community health. With our multi-institutional hub of distinguished partners firmly in place, the strategic plans for the CTSC are geared to rapidly advance translational science discovery by: 1) Enhancing informatics to increase resource adoption, reduce roadblocks and streamline workflow through training, novel software, and new collaborations; 2) Developing strong translational research engagement with communities, and preparing for health crises; 3) Continuing to develop our highly successful clinical and translational education programs through innovative and entrepreneurial multifaceted initiatives including a new cross-hub KL2/TL1 collaboration with the Georgetown/Howard CTSA; and 4) Creating Team Science initiatives that promote innovative didactic opportunities and seminars on innovation and entrepreneurship, the newest of which will be a collaborate with eLab on “Unmet Needs for Stimulating Device Development,” a five-part series which is designed to stimulate device development. The Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies program will be enhanced to target projects in device and therapeutics development, precision medicine and research in special populations while promoting collaborations between the community, community organizations and CTSC Investigators. The CTSC also offers opportunities that reach the broader community such as our Teaching Ethics Through Art program. The Special Population Network (SPN) will expand to include community outreach studies and continue clinical research studies with a focus on the following populations: children, the elderly, and those with disabilities. Additionally, the Network Capacity Component will do more outreach to encourage local investigators to initiate multi-center clinical trials. The CTSC has also been extremely successful ensuring the availability of biostatisticians from all partners with expertise in multiple disease systems and with adequate computational resources to support the design and conduct of research studies performed within the CTSC. All of these initiatives allow the CTSC to accomplish its goal of translating science to improve public health more effectively and efficiently.