Capacity building is necessary for supporting research on issues affecting human health in under-resourced communities such as Puerto Rico. The Technologies and Resources for Research Laboratories Core (TRRCL) is a component of the Hispanic Alliance for Clinical and Translational Research (the Alliance) composed of the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC), the Ponce Medical School Foundation (PMSF), and the Universidad Central del Caribe (UCC). TRRCL services to clinical and translational investigators in Puerto Rico has increased steadily from 2014 until 2019. Under the newly conceived Alliance, the TRRCL team proposes to continue developing the capacity of TRRCL to fulfill the needs of clinical and translational investigators who require specialized laboratory equipment and services to conduct their research. It is expected that continuous access to cutting-edge technologies and laboratory resources facilitated by the TRRCL will motivate more investigators to conduct clinical and translational research successfully and increase the institutional capacity to address health issues impacting underserved Hispanic populations in Puerto Rico and the rest of the US. The TRRCLs main goal for this project is to improve shared research facilities for investigators, and to improve access for investigators to these facilities. The objective of TRRCL is to ensure that investigators that require laboratory space and technical support receive access to core laboratory services thereby allowing for the timely completion and publication of their research projects. The central hypothesis is that the TRRCL will catalyze an increase in active clinical and translational research projects in the Alliance institutions. The TRRCL will achieve this by: 1) supporting the training of researchers in the Alliance institutions and increasing researchers access to TRRCL cores and highly trained staff; 2) providing investigators the technical expertise and infrastructure they need to produce reliable data that is of publication quality, and; 3) enhancing the impact and outreach of the TRRCLby establishing collaborative agreements with other institutions and by participation in community engagement activities. As the TRRCL usage increases, the team expects to satisfy the increased demand by collaborating INBRE and COBRE research cores in Puerto Rico and in other IDeA states. TRRCLwill complement this support and accelerate progress on research projects that will translate to health benefits for the Puerto Rico population and underserved Hispanic/Latino populations across the nation, and will result in a more competitive biomedical workforce in Puerto Rico supported by state-of-the-art research f ac ilities.
