| |
Translational Technologies and Resources (TTR)
Overview and Objectives: The Delaware Valley Resource for Translational Technologies and Resources (DVR-TTR) supports the
governing aims of the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (DVICTS) through instrument training
for faculty and students (DVICTS governing objective 1) and support for new methodology development (DVICTS governing
objective 2). DVR-TTR advances governing objective 1 by making state-of-the art research instrumentation available to the
next generation of clinical and translational health-related professionals; DVICTS faculty and students will benefit
from the expertise resident in each instrumentation center, as well as from the central coordination of core facilities
that is planned for the DVICTS community. Within this framework, DVR-TTR will pursue the following 3 specific objectives:
- Objective 1: Provide DVICTS-affiliated researchers and trainees with state-of-the-art instrumentation and highly
qualified professional personnel. This will enable the researchers to conduct leading-edge basic and clinical research
within an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional framework. A centrally coordinated, well-integrated TTR core will
serve both existing researchers and clinicians and will be a major recruiting tool to attract new investigators and
students into the DVICTS Network to create innovative training opportunities and to enhance translational
research in the Delaware Valley.
- Objective 2: Improve the utilization, accessibility, and management of the core instrumentation centers within the
DVICTS partner institutions. This innovative approach will provide a coordinating framework that will reduce duplication of
resources, reduce cost to the researchers and institutions and enhance the accessibility to state-of-the-art instrumentation
centers.
- Objective 3: Develop new mechanisms to match researcher needs for core instrumentation support with resources
available within DVICTS. Advanced web-based tools will be employed to enable rapid and intuitive search of available
resources, combined with innovative tools to provide suggestions similar to "amazon.com" to expand the search horizon of the
researcher. In addition, faculty with pilot grants under the DVICTS CTSA program will also be eligible for core fee waivers
to further enhance their research productivity. These waivers can be used for access to core center instrumentation and also
to core center-based experts to discuss the development of research plans.
Background: A large complement of core instrumentation centers is in place at each of the DVICTS partner institutions. Core
instrumentation centers at the 3 Delaware DVICTS institutions-the University of Delaware (UD), Christiana Care Health
System (CCHS), and the Alfred I. duPoint Hospital for Children (Nemours/AIDHC)-have benefitted from significant infrastructure
support provided by the Delaware INBRE, the NIH-NCRR-supported, statewide IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence,
established in 2001.
Among the Delaware partners, operational guidelines provide transparent access to the shared core instrumentation centers for
all investigators across the network. The core center directors meet on a regular basis to discuss best management practices
and to coordinate joint training and marketing activities. These include a Web-based portal that provides convenient access
for students and faculty to locate available instrumentation for life sciences research. The creation of the Center for
Translational Medicine at UD has established important new technologies on campus and training opportunities in translational
cardiovascular medicine. At Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), funding through the National Cancer Institute has also allowed
for establishment of core facilities that have become institutional resources across the university. All of these cores are
coordinated under the Kimmel Cancer Center and a web site exists listing all of these resources. Through the development of
DVICTS, we will merge key components of these well-established individual core centers into a centrally coordinated core
network: DVR-TTR.
|
