2. Prioritize trainee involvement in a team-based culture. Our career development and training programs are intended for trainees at all levels, from predoctoral (medical, graduate and nursing), to postdoctoral, and early-career faculty. Our intent is to explicitly integrate new trainees into our MTTs, so that we foster a culture of team-oriented research, providing examples of how productive interdisciplinary teams function and can be rewarded within the framework of an AHC.

3. Integrate systems biological approaches into translational research. In the postgenomic era, high-throughput tools such as genomics, proteomics, and biomedical informatics provide unique opportunities for translation, including biomarker identification, risk stratification, and multidimensional interrogation of complex biological processes. These present important opportunities to make significant advances in understanding human biological systems and how they are modified in disease. In fact, ITS supported MTTs have successfully identified disease signatures in atopic asthma, otitis media, hepatitis C-induced hepatocellular carcinoma, and burns injury.

4. Participate in the national CTSA consortium.  We are currently developing an infrastructure for effective data sharing with other CTSAs. To this end, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a joint UTMB-UTHSC Center in Personalized Health Informatics. This is a joint training and research center in partnership with UT Houston School of Health Information Sciences. This collaboration make us well positioned to participate in the national CTSA consortium.

««  Collapse  »»