The Year in Review: UF CTSI

The CTSI’s 2018 accomplishments were recapped in the March 7, 2019 “Reflecting on Our Achievements, Part 2” message from David R. Nelson, M.D., interim senior vice president for health affairs, UF, president, UF Health, and CTSI director. Read the full message here: https://ufhealth.org/news/2019/2018-review-reflecting-our-achievements-part-2 

The CTSI section follows:

As a catalytic hub for translational research, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) last year helped more than 1,500 investigators, graduate students, trainees and research professionals navigate the research landscape, find potential collaborators and access CTSI services. CTSI programs and resources contributed to more than 250 scientific publications. Accomplishments toward the CTSI’s strategic plan goals include:

Translational Research Environment

The Office of Clinical Research progressed in its enterprisewide implementation of the OnCore clinical trials management system, creating opportunities for portfolio-based clinical trials reporting and centralized financial management for non-federal trials. CTSI programs also introduced several new research services. The CTSI Recruitment Center facilitated development of institutionwide guidelines for using social media to recruit study participants and created the UF Studies Facebook page as a central resource for promoting clinical research and advertising studies. The CTSI Data Coordinating Center was established to address gaps in services and technologies for clinical trial design and data management, data privacy and wearable device data management, and the CTSI Translational Drug Development Core launched services for bioanalytical drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics and early animal toxicity and efficacy studies.

Translational Workforce Training and Education

The CTSI Translational Workforce Development Program has taken a leadership role in reorganizing graduate, postgraduate and junior faculty development in clinical and translational science. In 2018, the CTSI supported more than 40 faculty members and trainees across its TL1, KL2, TRACTS and Mentor Academy programs. The CTSI welcomed four new TL1 Teams composed of eight predoctoral students from eight colleges, expanding the cohort of trainees participating in the TL1 Program’s novel team-based training experience. The CTSI’s K College, T Team and F Force concepts have grown to convene more than 150 early-stage investigators as well as T and F directors and trainees across multiple colleges. New K and T awards at UF are at historically high levels.

Learning Health System Initiatives

The UF Health Precision Medicine Program continued to expand its translation of genomic medicine into clinical practice. One of the original NIH-funded IGNITE network sites, the program received a five-year IGNITE II renewal grant in 2018. The program has led clinical implementation of genotype-guided therapy for 12 patient populations spanning three hospitals and 23 clinics.

The CTSI Learning Health System Program developed and implemented pilot projects in collaboration with UF Health stakeholders and citizen scientists, including studies focused on genotype-guided pain management for patients undergoing arthroplasty surgery, and inpatient delirium management. It also facilitated participation of OneFlorida partners in three national PCORnet health system demonstration projects focused on high utilization, and quality and safety benchmarking for children.

Statewide and National Collaborations

Celebrating its seventh year at UF, HealthStreet has expanded its reach to 46 counties and enrolled close to 11,000 members in its research registry, the majority of whom are minorities underrepresented in research. In 2018, HealthStreet collaborated with other CTSAs to disseminate six national Our Community, Our Health town halls.

As coordinating center for the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, which encompasses more than 15 million patients, the CTSI bridges two national research networks: the CTSA consortium and PCORnet. Investigators can now use i2b2 to query UF Health, OneFlorida (statewide) and CTSA Accrual to Clinical Trials Network (34 sites nationwide) data repositories for cohort discovery. In 2018, OneFlorida’s research portfolio grew to include 57 active observational and interventional studies.