Boston University

The Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is a partnership between Boston University and Boston Medical Center launched in 2008 with funding from the National Institutes of Health, which has been tasked with the mission of expediting this process. The CTSI serves as a center of expertise which provides tools, services, and resources to clinical and translational investigators to maximize the impact of their discoveries and speed the translation of their research to the bedside. In particular, we are committed to improving the health of vulnerable populations through novel discovery approaches and by engaging these populations in the research enterprise. We have noted that individual and incremental local and national solutions to the inefficiencies in translational science have not had a lot of impact. On the contrary, we find our greatest successes occur when we employ team approaches to problems. As a result, the CTSI has succeeded in meeting many of the challenges of T1 through T4 translational science because we have bridged these environments through innovative collaborative processes. Figure 1 emphasizes the local, highly-integrated, interconnected, and interdependent nature of our network. As a result, every CTSI interaction with the CTSA Network brings to the collaboration the full strength of an expanded portfolio of our resources to expedite progress in translational research. While we present many types of solutions to barriers in translational science, we strongly endorse NCATS’ emphasis on multi-disciplinary team approaches to manage complexities and create innovative programs. The CTSI’s vision is to be the strongest advocate for research that represents the needs of our diverse populations by creating superior resources that can reliably be transferred to the national CTSA Network.