NIH awards UCSF with $112M for translational research
In an endeavor to “translate” science into bedside solutions for patients, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a renewed funding of a whopping $112 million to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Earlier this Monday, UCSF stated that the funding will be spread over a period of five years. UCSF officials declared that in recognition “of their successes during the first five years of the NIH’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards program,” the biomedical university of San Francisco is one of 10 institutes nationally to have won a grant of almost $500 million in renewed funding.
In 2006, in an attempt to uphold its translational research involving everything from basic biological research to industry partnerships, clinical trials, and clinical research, the CTS Institute of UCSF won grants from the NIH amounting to more than $100 million.
Officials declared that UCSF remains the country’s second-largest clinical and translational science institute having received the biggest renewal grant. Columbia University Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Rockefeller University, UC Davis, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, and Yale University were amongst the other institutions to have received the renewed NIH funding.
In the July 18 statement, the UCSF’s chancellor, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, M.D., noted that the CTS Institute of UCSF is aiming to produce the “secret sauce” that associates exceptional fundamental research with great clinical care. Barbara Alving, M.D., director of the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources who coordinates the program declared that “These institutes,” including UCSF and the others winning renewed NIH translational research funding, “were the pioneers in this program and are to be commended for the work they have done in bridging the traditional divides between laboratory research and medical practice.”
A progress report on the program will be released by NIH next month.