Translational Research

Translational Research

In September 2003, National Institutes of Health director Elias A. Zerhouni unveiled a Roadmap Initiative that could transform the way NIH funds research. To formulate the roadmap, Zerhouni organized meetings with more than 300 biomedical experts over the course of 14 months, brainstorming about clearing roadblocks to research that no single NIH institute could overcome. Many of the recommendations in the NIH roadmap follow from the Institute of Medicine’s report Enhancing the Vitality of the National Institutes of Health: Organizational Change to Meet New Challenges. In response to this report, NIH created an initiative that embraced the promotion of translational research.

Translational research has two definitions. In the first, discoveries made in the basic sciences, from molecular biology to physics, are translated into improvements in clinical practice. The interaction of basic scientists and clinician investigators bridges the gap from "bench to bedside". In the second, discoveries made by clinical investigators are translated into community practice. There is active involvement in both forms of translational research at ZSFG.

NIH recently re-funded the UCSF Clinical and Translational Research Institute with $115,000,000 over five years to provide infrastructure support to researchers, including faculty at ZSFG. To find out more about clinical research support services available at ZSFG, go to http://accelerate.ucsf.edu/research/crs. To find out about other UCSF CTSI services (e.g. bioinformatics, regulatory support), career development awards, and grants, go to http://ctsi.ucsf.edu/about-us/programs.

ZSFG Research Committee

The mission of the ZSFG Research Committee is to advise the Vice Dean on all matters related to conduct of research on the ZSFG campus and the relationship of the research programs here to the rest of the UCSF campus and UC system, with the overreaching goal to facilitate and promote academic excellence.

The committee:

• provides oversight on space allocation
• provides oversight of animal facility utilization
• provides a forum for discussion of collaboration research efforts
• provides mentoring for investigators
• encourages sharing of resources and equipment
• solves logistical problems for investigators
• supports efforts to improve research space at ZSFG
• generally supports the research community at ZSFG

The committee is appointed by the ZSFG Vice Dean from the ZSFG faculty actively engaged in research, and is made up of representative junior and senior investigators from the complete range of academic departments active in research activity on campus.

For ZSFG Researchers

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Contacts for ZSFG Protocol Approvals:

Current Committee Members