The National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) of $25 million to the IU School of Medicine, which will fund CTSI activities at IU and Purdue. A total of $56 million will be invested in the Indiana CTSI by IU and Purdue, the state of Indiana and Eli Lilly and Co., which is underwriting the cost of a senior faculty position for three years.
The NIH created the clinical and translational science awards as a high priority effort to improve the process by which basic science laboratory discoveries are transformed into new medical treatments and products – a process called translational research.
The CTSI will implement the NIH initiative in Indiana with new programs to accelerate translational research, train new translational researchers, interact with community health-care professionals and the public, build research resources and technologies, and leverage Hoosier resources with health care, business, government and foundation partnerships.
The Indiana CTSI’s statewide collaboration involves university scientists in Indianapolis, Lafayette and Bloomington. However, the initiative also includes community partners such as Clarian Health, Eli Lilly and Co., BioCrossroads, Cook Group, Roche, WellPoint, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the Indiana Department of Health and the Marion County Health Department.
Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at IU School of Medicine and IU assistant vice president for life sciences, has been named director of the Indiana CTSI. Connie Weaver, Ph.D., head of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue, has been named deputy director of the CTSI at Purdue. Bennett Bertenthal, Ph.D., dean of the IU College of Arts and Sciences, has been named deputy director for the IU Bloomington campus.