This Alteration and Renovation request will provide University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), a primarily undergraduate partner institution that is the designated health campus of UA, with improved physical space in the form of a Clinical-Translational Research Center (CTRC). Funds in this Alteration and Renovation Core will be utilized to provide three functional spaces dedicated to research activities in the translational and clinical domains: 1) Reception/desk area for research staff member and research participant, 2) Physical exam and sample collection area, 3) Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) lab for sample processing and data acquisition. Expanding and promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary research is a primary component of the vision for health sciences at UA. The CTRC will provide dedicated space to allow UAA faculty to participate in biomedical research as teams, spanning the lab-subject-community research domains within the Alaska IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE)3 themes. The CTRC will leverage our biomedical research focus on basic leading to translational research to improve overall health in the state. Research teams will include both current INBRE faculty, as well as faculty primarily from the School of Nursing, the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) School of Medical Education, the Department of Health Sciences, and the School of Allied Health which have historically not been affiliated with Alaska INBRE. The CTRC will achieve the following four goals;1) Allow faculty with significant prior experience in translational health sciences, but who have not participated in previous Alaska INBRE cycles, to become active, engaged participants to further build biomedical research capacity in Alaska, 2) Provide infrastructure to facilitate the development of research experiences, theses and dissertations of a translational nature for health professional undergraduate and graduate students, 3) Disseminate knowledge by using translational research strategies to address significant health problems for Alaska, 4) Increase the number of biomedical faculty using translational research approaches to address the unique environment, people and exposure to environmental agents in Alaska. These four goals support the overall programmatic goals of Alaska INBRES.
By supporting faculty through this research infrastructure, we will increase their ability to succesfully compete for ROI grants and other sources of support. We will broaden our range of expertise in biomedical research and available resources, facilitating new collaborations with clinical entities. Building translational research capacity at UA is essential to understand One Health (interaction of environment, animals, and people).
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