The mission of this planning grant is to devise bold strategies for building a Clinical and Translational Science Center (CISC) among collaborating institutions with Weill Cornell Medical Center (WCMC) as the lead institution. Our vision is the creation of an outstanding multidisciplinary and multi-institutional Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) that will nurture and promote a research environment to accelerate the clinical application of basic science discoveries. ? ? In pursuit of these goals, a strategic plan for implementing the CTSC at WCMC will be developed. It will put in place a strategy for utilizing the unique resources of partnering institutions by challenging the barriers to inter-institutional collaboration. Our partners in this enterprise, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Hospital or Special Surgery, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Hunter College School of Nursing and the Hunter College Research Center for Minority Institutions will each contribute a unique perspective to the planning process. ? ? The creation of an exemplary CTSC requires re-envisioning collaboration models between basic, translational and clinical scientists. The specific objectives of the strategic plan for the CTSC are to employ the resources and expertise of collaborating institutions to devise fundamentally new ways of interacting through 1) developing inter-institutional research teams involving multidisciplinary basic scientists, clinical and translational investigators, and other health care professionals; 2) identifying resources and space to accommodate multi-institutional researchers from diverse disciplines; 3) developing approaches to fully utilize our extensive community outreach programs to access New York's unparalleled availability of large ethnically, racially and age-diverse patient populations; 4) transforming the GCRC through development of comprehensive Participant and Clinical Interactions Resources Facilities (PCIR) for use by research teams; 5) devising an integrated communications infrastructure that facilitates interaction among institutions, researchers and communities and 6) developing strategies to encourage novel clinical and translational methodologies with mechanisms to expedite the funding of pilot and collaborative studies. ? ? The objectives also include an expansion and enhancement of educational programs for clinical and ? translational researchers at all levels. The expansion will build upon the foundations of the WMC/WGSMS K-30/Masters Degree Program in Clinical Investigation, the WMC/WGSMS Masters in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research, and the MSKCC K-30. The enhancement will focus upon our collaboration with the Hunter College School of Nursing to enhance our bench-to-bedside strategies through participation of nurses as leaders or participants in team research, community related programs and education. ? ? ?
