The University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute, in partnership with Florida State University, has been awarded $29 million to speed research discoveries that will lead to improved health for people living in the nation’s third-largest state.
UF and FSU will expand their research partnership with the five-year award, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. Led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the nationwide network of more than 50 CTSA hubs develop, demonstrate and disseminate advances in translational science, a field devoted to turning research discoveries into new approaches that improve health.
“As an integrated CTSA hub, UF and FSU can bring together our scientific strengths to better serve both of our communities and make a difference in the lives of all Floridians,” said CTSI Director and CTSA Principal Investigator David R. Nelson, M.D., senior vice president for health affairs at UF and president of UF Health. “By combining complementary resources, we can engage more people as partners in research.”
Nelson leads the CTSI with co-director Betsy A. Shenkman, Ph.D., chair of the UF College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics. At FSU, the partnership is led by Jeffrey N. Joyce, Ph.D., senior associate dean for research and graduate programs in the College of Medicine.
The CTSI will continue to offer a CTSA KL2 career development program for early career faculty and a CTSA TL1 training program for Ph.D. students. The KL2 and TL1 program awards are led, respectively, by principal investigators Thomas A. Pearson, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., and Wayne T. McCormack, Ph.D., both professors in the UF College of Medicine.