UF Receives NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award

David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D.

I’m pleased to announce that the University of Florida today was named a recipient of a nearly $26 million National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Award — the only CTSA in Florida, and one of only 46 nationally.

With this funding, UF joins a prestigious national consortium of medical research institutions working to speed the translation of basic science discoveries into improved health care for patients.

Receipt of this five-year grant positions UF to maintain its competitive edge by accelerating scientific discovery, enhancing medical care, developing commercializable technologies, producing highly skilled clinician-scientists and fostering partnerships with industry.

UF’s CTSI partnership involves both the Gainesville and Jacksonville Health Science Center campuses and includes 12 of the university’s 16 colleges: Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Professions, Veterinary Medicine, Fine Arts, Journalism and Communications, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Health and Human Performance and Agricultural and Life Sciences.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, which has a network of extension programs in each of Florida’s 67 counties, is also a major partner. In addition, Shands HealthCare, the Southeast’s largest health-care system, and the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, the nation’s largest two-division Veterans Affairs health-care system, help to extend the CTSI’s resources and services across the state.

The research supported at UF spans a wide range of disciplines and involves the development and application of new basic science, clinical and community-based methods, including effective use of biomedical informatics and complex statistical analysis tools. The CTSA will support multidisciplinary research in a wide range of fields such as biomedical informatics, gene therapy, aging, nanotechnology and infectious diseases.

At the University of Rochester, I had the privilege of being Principal Investigator of its CTSA grant since 2006. From this perspective, I want to congratulate Dr. Peter Stacpoole and his team for obtaining this highly competitive award. I am confident that, because of the innovation in the design of UF’s CTSA, its reach across many partners throughout the state, and the dedication and substantial support of President Bernie Machen and Vice President Win Phillips, the Florida CTSI will be transformational in fostering clinical and translation science in this region.