OHSU has been awarded two grants totaling $62 million from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to support the use of health data, algorithms and information systems to bridge basic science and clinical research.
The newly awarded grant provides OHSU with $25 million over five years to establish and lead the new National Center for Data to Health, or CD2H, which aims to foster collaboration across more than 50 premier medical research institutions within the prestigious Clinical and Translational Science Awards, or CTSA, network.
“The goal is to unlock and coordinate the unique wealth of technologies and innovation that each participating institution brings. Team science, data sharing, use of informatics to integrate and analyze data and collaboration will ultimately improve the care of patients,” said Melissa Haendel, Ph.D., co-director of the NCATS-funded Biomedical Data Translator (grant OT3TR002019), the Monarch Initiative (www.monarchinitiative.org) and the OHSU Library.
Together with Northwestern University, University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sage Bionetworks, Scripps Research Institute, Washington University, the University of Iowa and the Jackson Laboratory, OHSU will provide collaborative clinical and translational research infrastructure.
“Oregon Clinical and TransIational Research Institute is delighted to partner with Dr. Haendel on the CD2H. She is a national leader in translational informatics innovation and community building,” said David Ellison, M.D., director of OCTRI and professor of medicine (nephrology and hypertension), and physiology and pharmacology, OHSU School of Medicine. “We see the Center for Data to Health as playing an essential role in building harmonized systems that will bring the health impact of the CTSA network to a new level.”
The new initiative will develop innovative tools, standards, and processes so that lessons learned at each institution are shared widely throughout the CTSA network and beyond. The CD2H will focus on creating a supportive, vibrant, and evolving informatics ecosystem that supports collaborative innovation and training across informatics tools, methods, standards and processes, thereby building capacity for new insights and improved health outcomes for patients.
Along with the newly funded National Center for Data to Health program, OHSU also has received $37 million from NCATS to support OCTRI at OHSU (grant UL1TR002369). This five-year award will support the institute’s work to help accelerate the translation of research into clinical use, medical practice and health policy.
Since its founding in 2006, the CTSA program has since expanded to fund institutes at the most prominent academic health centers in the United States, working to improve clinical and translational science. As a leader in this new consortium, and one of the original 12 academic health centers awarded through NCATS, OHSU is on the cutting edge of healthcare informatics and innovation and will continue to transform how research improves human health.
The new CTSA Program National Center for Data to Health is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (grant U24TR002306).