feature story
The University of New Mexico
Virginia Commonwealth University
The vision of the Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) at The University of the New Mexico Health Sciences Center is to continue expanding and refining a transformative, novel academic home for essential clinical and translational health sciences discovery in New Mexico and the Mountain West region.
The Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR), which was founded in 2007, is Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) academic home for clinical and translational research. The mission of VCU’s CCTR is to support university researchers from the life, physical, computer and social sciences, as well as engineering and economics—especially those who are conducting multidisciplinary research.
The CTSC will integrate the efforts of community leaders and clinicians; basic, clinical and translational investigators; healthcare and research collaborators; and industry partners to advance meaningful human health discovery and accelerate its applications in New Mexico communities. College of Pharmacy faculty are involved in the CTSC in a number of ways. Dr. Johnnye L. Lewis is the director of the Novel Translational Methodologies program and Dr. Jim K.J. Liu is the director of the Small Animal Imaging Facility. Dr. Mark T. Holdsworth is an instructor of record for BIOM 567 Biomedical Ethics and Regulatory Compliance in Clinical and Translational Research and Dr. James J. Nawarskas serves on the CTSC faculty recruitment committee. Dr. Dennis Raisch is an instructor of record for BIOM 561 Patient Outcomes in Clinical and Translational Research and serves on the Master of Clinical Research steering committee. With its numerous, diverse partners in New Mexico and the Mountain West region, the CTSC has the expertise, infrastructure and resources to synergize multidisciplinary clinical and translational research to catalyze the application of new knowledge and techniques on the patient-care front lines; recruit, train and advance talented, highly-skilled investigators and research teams strong in cultural sensitivity, health disparity and biotechnology; create an incubator for innovative research, information technologies and research informatics; and expand existing partnerships between UNM Health Sciences Center researchers, practicing clinicians and communities to speed the development of medical research.
The VCU CCTR recently announced four awardees of the inaugural K12 mentored research grants program, which is designed to increase the independence of junior clinical and translational faculty by successfully transforming them into networked, funded investigators and future leaders in clinical and translational research. Two of the four initial grantees are faculty from the School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcome Sciences: Drs. Leticia R. Moczygemba and Benjamin W. Van Tassell. Dr. Gary R. Matzke, the School of Pharmacy’s associate dean for clinical research and public policy, points out that the didactic element of these training grants includes the opportunity for each scholar to enroll in the M.S. or Ph.D. program in clinical and translational sciences and take additional courses, thus building a unique foundation to advance their research credentials and capabilities. Matzke said Moczygemba and Van Tassell share a common career goal: to become independent, R01-funded researchers. Moczygemba’s research has focused on addressing medication-related health disparities in marginalized populations, specifically homeless persons. Van Tassell’s research is focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which Interleukin-1ß contributes to the development of cardiac dysfunction/cardiomyopathy and to determine if targeted Interleukin-1ß blockade will improve cardiac function and alleviate symptoms in patients with heart failure.
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cademic pharmacy has become a prominent player in clinical and translational research since the NIH launched the CTSA network in 2006. That year, the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Pittsburgh were awarded CTSA grants. Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences faculty partnered with academic health centers (AHC) and biomedical research institutions across upstate New York to form a CTSA Institute. The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and the University of Southern California were among 52 AHCs awarded a planning grant from NIH that same year. The University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Washington and University of Wisconsin-Madison were awarded the CTSA grant in 2007. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and St. Louis College of Pharmacy collaborated with recipients Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Washington University, respectively. In 2008, five more universities joined the consortium, with colleges or schools of pharmacy serving as supporting partners in the grants. These include the University of Colorado Denver, The Ohio State University, Northeastern University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and The University of Texas at Austin. The most recent group of recipients include the Medical University of South Carolina, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Cincinnati, which were all awarded the CTSA in 2009.
ACADEMIC PHARMACY NOW Oct/Nov/Dec 2010
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