Overview and Specific Aims The overall objective of the Clinical and Translational Pilot Grant (CTPG) KCA is to build clinical and translational research capacity and extramural funding success among researchers in the Western IDeA states. Clinical and Translational Research addressing the unique regional health issues of the Western Region IDeA states has been carried out mainly in colleges of science, liberal arts, and allied health sciences, in departments of public health, nursing, social work, psychology, and related programs. However, these projects and programs are often underfunded, struggling with inadequate infrastructure support, constrained by limited availability of faculty release time, isolated from one another, and limited in scope. Support from a comprehensive pilot project program will substantially accelerate these existing efforts and bring them to a level competitive for independent extramural funding. The last decade has seen an unprecedented increase in NIH-funded research within the Western Region IDeA states, largely due to the support from COBRE and INBRE programs. Overall, these COBRE and INBRE programs have been very successful, but they have been focused almost entirely on pre-clinical research. There has been little support or infrastructure available to help this talented cadre of pre-clinical investigators move into translational research. This KCA will implement a program to fund pilot grants supporting projects likely to lead to independent NIH funding for both clinical, and translational, investigators. Awards will be based on reviews of scientific merit and the alignment of the proposed research with the mission of the CTN-IN. We will solicit proposals for clinical and translational research projects on topics including, but not limited to, health issues and health care access among rural and vulnerable populations in the Western Region IDeA states. The funds devoted to this program will translate to a high yield return on investment as investigators develop interdisciplinary collaborations and generate proof of principal data to accelerate successful extramural grant funding, ultimately hastening the adoption of transformative health-related discoveries by health care providers.
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