Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., has been appointed as co-chair of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards, or CTSA, Program Steering Committee. In this new role, Mitchell will work alongside fellow co-chair, Michael Kurilla, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Clinical Innovation at the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), to provide leadership for the CTSA network and its future. Presently, 60 clinical research institutions receive CTSA funding and form the program’s hub network. The goal of the steering committee is to help establish and disseminate best practices for all hubs in this network, facilitate collaboration to advance research and develop the research professional workforce.
In discussing the appointment, Mitchell said “It is an honor to serve as co-chair of the CTSA Program Steering Committee and work collaboratively across the CTSA network to address the big challenges and key opportunities in advancing clinical and translational research. We live in a time when our technological advances and new discoveries in science are far outpacing our improvements in health-related outcomes. Translational science is really the science of turning discovery into improved health, and I look forward to contributing to the national effort to catalyze advances in health-related outcomes through innovative research in my role as steering committee co-chair.”
Mitchell joined the University of Florida, or UF, in 2013 as the Phyllis Kottler Friedman professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. As of 2020, he is also the UF Assistant Vice President for Research, Associate Dean for Translational Science and Clinical Research in the UF College of Medicine and director of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute, or CTSI. As CTSI director, Mitchell serves as the principal investigator of the university’s CTSA hub research partnership with Florida State University.
An esteemed brain tumor scientist and clinical investigator, Mitchell has pioneered many novel brain tumor immunotherapies that have been translated in to first-in-human clinical trials and multi-center phase two studies. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including a 2016 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum in Washington, D.C., induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2019, and induction into the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics of Florida in 2020.
Since beginning his career, Mitchell has been awarded over $40 million in research funding, including being continuously funded since 2009 by the National Institutes of Health for his cancer research. He has also served on several national and international advisory boards for industry, academia, and government agencies, including the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Counselors, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Scientific Review Board and as gubernatorial appointee and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Florida Center for Brain Tumor Research.