October 3, 2006
CONTACT: Karen Kreeger
karen.kreeger@uphs.upenn.edu
Penn Leads $98 Million Translational
Medicine Collaboration
(Philadelphia, PA) - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded
the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine $68
million over the next five years, along with The Children’s Hospital
of Philadelphia. Institutional commitments of $30 million bring the Philadelphia
consortium’s total to nearly $100 million.
In addition to the Philadelphia collaboration, 11 other academic health
centers throughout the nation are receiving these awards. An additional
52 institutions are receiving planning grants to help them prepare applications
to join the consortium. When fully implemented in 2012, about 60 institutions
will be linked together to energize the discipline of clinical and translational
science.
NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD, today announced the launch of this
national consortium that will transform how translational biomedical research
is conducted. This new consortium is funded through NIH Clinical and Translational
Science Awards (CTSAs). “The development of this consortium represents
the first systematic change in our approach to clinical research in 50
years,” says Zerhouni. “Working together, these sites will
serve as discovery engines that will improve medical care by applying
new scientific advances to real-world practice. We expect to see new approaches
reach underserved populations, local community organizations, and health
care providers to ensure that medical advances are reaching the people
who need them.”
“This award to the School of Medicine and its collaborators will
help us use our biomedical research and medical education programs to
benefit our patients even more greatly,” says Arthur Rubenstein,
MBBCh, Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania
for the Health System and Dean, School of Medicine. “It will enhance
the development of interdisciplinary structures designed to foster and
facilitate research and education in the emerging discipline of translational
medicine.”
“The Philadelphia collaboration will act as a vital catalyst for
us to undertake a programmatic transformation heralded two years ago by
the foundation of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics,”
says Garret FitzGerald, MD, Director of the Institute
and and principal investigator of the CTSA. “Crucially, the award
application process has engaged the School of Medicine with The Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia, the Wistar Institute, and the University of
the Sciences of Philadelphia, along with eight other schools at Penn to
form a truly interdisciplinary alliance to facilitate clinical and translational
research. Our major educational investment will support the emergence
of a new breed of investigators who will realize the fruits of basic research
and deliver them to the community in the years to come.” In addition
to educational goals, the Philadelphia translational medicine alliance
will develop better designs for clinical trials; design new and improved
clinical research informatics tools; expand outreach to minority and medically
undeserved communities; and forge new partnerships with private and public
health care organizations.
“Children’s Hospital is delighted to be among the first of
pediatric hospitals benefiting from CTSAs and we look forward to participating
in this interdisciplinary alliance with Penn and the other partners to
advance the infrastructure and efficiency of research,” says Peter
Adamson, MD, Director, Office of Clinical and Translational Research at
Children’s Hospital. “Penn and Children’s Hospital have
a long history of collaboration between investigators, but by combining
efforts under the CTSA, the depth and breadth of infrastructure support
will advance the pace and foster new areas of critical research.”
One example of how the grant will streamline research is by development
of a sophisticated approach to improving the effective use of medications
for pediatric patients. Computerized programs can combine data from laboratory
studies, results and findings from related drugs, and using highly sophisticated
mathematical modeling and simulation techniques, help researchers predict
the most effective dosages and delivery methods for particular drugs.
“We can take a promising new molecule and expedite some of the more
laborious, time-consuming traditional methods to provide a systematic
approach to estimating drug dosages before we use those doses in patients
enrolling on a clinical trial,” says Adamson.
The CTSA grant will enable Children's Hospital to reach a new level of
informatics technology with the creation of a “E-Port,” a
cross-institutional website that will guide researchers through the regulatory
and approval process and create a central location for all documentation,
thus making the business of conducting research streamlined and more efficient.
The Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT ) at
Penn anticipated many aspects of this new initiative, among them, inclusion
of the NIH-funded Penn and Children’s Hospital General Clinical
Research Centers, dedicated “dry” and “wet” bench
space for translational research, and a robust educational program, based
on an MS degree in Translational Research, within the institute.
ITMAT, designated as the “academic home” for clinical and
translational research, has been broadened to serve a transinstitutional
role. Its structure has been transformed to foster interdisciplinary science
from discovery of new molecules through to the study of drug action in
large populations. This change has been accomplished by developing interdisciplinary
centers, related cores, innovative interdisciplinary programs of research,
and strategies to engage and inform communities and their physicians.
A particular emphasis has been placed on interdisciplinary training and
on broadening the reach of the educational initiatives to span from undergraduate
students to mature clinicians and scientists.
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PENN Medicine is a $2.9 billion enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and high-quality patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Penn's School of Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research funds; and ranked #3 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report's most recent ranking of top research-oriented medical schools. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System includes three hospitals, all of which have received numerous national patient-care honors [Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital; and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center]; a faculty practice plan; a primary-care provider network; two multispecialty satellite facilities; and home care and hospice.
This release is available online at
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/oct06/CTSA.htm