To meet the need of the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Translational Consortium (PCTC) for 1)administrative infrastructure to organize interactions and facilitate collaborations between PCTC investigators, 2) oversight of programs of programs using set-aside funds to stimulate collaborative research and skills development, 3) timely sharing of PCTC-generated data and reagents among PCTC investigators and with the research community, and 4) for facilitated access to expertise for preparation of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) IND and IDE applications, we propose a PCTC Coordinating Center in response to RFA-HL-16-022, staffed by individuals who bring years of experience working along similar lines in the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium (PCBC) Administrative Coordinating Center (ACC); they have extensive experience in coordinating centers, organization and conduct of solicitation/review/ and award of proposals for research or skills development, FDA procedures for preparation of IND and IDE applications, collaborative research under cooperative agreements, consortium infrastructure, web site, communications, monitoring and documentation. We will adapt and advance our infrastructure (hardware, software, web sites and links, offices, office equipment and staff) in place for the PCBC ACC to extend to the PCTC resulting in an immediate, running start for the PCTC on day one. We will proceed to expand the functions of the extant infrastructure to additional, innovative use of social media to reach all corners of the PCTC community and out to the broader research community. We will continue the PCBC procedures for Skills Development support as well as support of solicitation/review/and award of pilot and ancillary/collaborative studies of which there have been 31 ancillary/collaborative study awards and 14 pilot study awards resulting from over 200 applications and 26 jump start (small post-doctoral fellow pilot study) awards from 78 applications. Our proposal is both highly efficient and innovative because of the expertise and experience of our investigators, the uninterruptable nature of their backup for each other and the uninterruptable nature of the systems we will extend and update from the PCBC to the PCTC. The PCBC ACC was able to accomplish all that it did with less than 3% of the consortium budget spent outside of the research hubs, cores and their projects. The channeling of resources to translational research, basic research necessary to support translational research and skills development that building on the PCBC infrastructure and the additional extension of our infrastructure through social media will be substantial.
We will meet the need of the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Translational Consortium (PCTC) for 1)administrative infrastructure to organize interactions and facilitate collaborations between PCTC investigators, 2) oversight of programs of programs using set-aside funds to stimulate collaborative research and skills development, 3) timely sharing of PCTC-generated data and reagents among PCTC investigators and with the research community, and 4) for facilitated access to expertise for preparation of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) IND and IDE applications. The result of these efforts will be to translate cutting basic, progenitor cell biological science into the treatments for heart, lung and blood diseases that will benefit the public. We will make these advances known in appreciable ways to the scientific community and to the public at large.
