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Every year, Indiana CTSI holds its annual meeting where a variety of translational research topics are covered. This page lists each meeting and any material (such as Powerpoint/PDF presentations) presented.
Indiana CTSI 2nd Annual Meeting, 2010
More than 250 people attended the second annual Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) meeting in the University Place Hotel and Conference Center on Monday, April 19. The event brought together administrative leaders, research scientists, subject experts and industry partners from across the region to hear speakers from Indiana CTSI and beyond discuss the many opportunities and challenges facing translational research in Indiana.
The meeting provided an opportunity for researchers to learn about the many exciting initiatives developing in Indiana, such as the Indiana Biorepository, Clinician Scientist Development Program, Health Informatics and Comparative Effectiveness Research Opportunities. Agenda items included presentations from prominent local and national speakers as well as exemplary Indiana CTSI researchers.
Please click HERE to view abstracts from the poster session.
Attention meeting attendees: Please click HERE to fill out a quick survey.
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Welcome to the meeting, D. Craig Brater, MD, Dean, Indiana University School of Medicine
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Dean Brater opened the meeting by noting its large venue reflected a growing interest in Indiana CTSI among the region’s business and research community, and also by putting forth an ambitious agenda for the institution.
“Our goal for the CTSI shouldn’t be just for it to be good and for us to be refunded,” said Brater. “Our goal for the CTSI should be for it to exemplify what translational sciences can be—to be clearly recognized as a leader within the CTSA network.”
“We have the capacity to do this,” he added, pointing to Indiana CTSI’s unique position as a focal point for translational research due to close physical proximity to such high-powered partner institutions as the Regenstrief Institute, BioCrossroads and Clarian Health, as well as its university partners, Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame.
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“The CTSAs and NCRR’s Vision for a National Consortium,” Anthony R. Hayward, MD, PhD, Director, Division for Clinical Research Resources, National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health
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Dr. Hayward, Director of the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), sponsor of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program supporting Indiana CTSI, delivered a keynote address on the ultimate goal of the CTSA program—improving patient care and access to health care by fueling innovation through support programs; access to advanced technologies, such as imaging and informatics service; investigator training opportunities; and science education.
“The underlying CTSA philosophy…is not a question specifically of bricks, clinics and rules, and what you’re allowed to do or not allowed to do,” said Hayward. “The question is: ‘How can you use the resources that NIH gives you to increase the efficiency of clinical and translational science research?”
Hayward also provided a short overview of the CTSA program, tracing its inception in 2006 to its current state as a program supporting 46 centers across the United States, of which Indiana CTSI represents the only such program in its state. The ultimate goal is to establish 60 CTSA sites across the U.S. by 2010-2011, he said, encouraging collaboration not only among researchers within their own sites but also between institutions in the national network.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Hayward's presentation slides.
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“Health Informatics; Opportunities and Challenges in Indiana,” David Johnson, President and CEO, BioCrossroads
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Mr. Johnson presented on the role that Indiana CTSI can play in improving the nation’s health informatics technology, a strong component in the national health care reform bill passed by the Obama Administration in March.
“Indiana has a tremendous future…as a great center for clinical information and electronic health information, and is also blessed with major health care providers who are prepared to use that information to provide better medicine,” he said.
Organizations such as the Indiana Health Information Exchange, established in 2004, and the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, established in 2006, put the Hoosier State “way ahead of any other state right now” in the implementation of electronic medical records, Johnson added. Only Utah and Massachusetts rank similarly in readiness to implement health information technology, according to the State-Level Health Information Exchange Consensus Project. Please click HERE to view Mr. Johnson's presentation slides.
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“Clarian Health Partners: Committed to Enhancing Research,” Daniel F. Evans, Jr., CEO, Clarian Health Partners
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Mr. Evans presented on his commitment to supporting translational research in order to meet his organization’s official goal of achieving the 90th percentile in “everything they do,” including patient care, education and the generation of new knowledge.
“One of the ways we’re going to reach the 90th percentile in clinical care is by applying the most recent evidence-based medicine,” said Evans. “Sixty percent of Indiana doctors train and complete their rotations here—we want them to leave with a fine appreciation of the relationship between research and clinical care.”
Active IRB-approved studies are on the rise at Clarian, he added. Total active studies at IUPUI and Methodist Hospital have risen from 2,433 in December 2008 to 2,683 in March 2010, with total principal investigators increasing from 690 to 721 over the same 16-month period.
Please click HERE to view Mr. Evans' presentation slides.
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“Physician Scientist Development Program” David Wilkes, MD, Executive Associate Dean for Research Affairs, Indiana University School of Medicine
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Dr.Wilkes presented on the Indiana Physician Scientist Initiative, established in December 2009 using $60 million in funds from the Lilly Endowment. He said the project’s support for Indiana CTSI projects that foster translational research development help address the challenges raised by the new relationship between physicians, researchers and industry.
“Over the past seven or eight years, the landscape has changed,” said Wilkes. “It used to be that the industry would seek out ideas in academia at a very early stage. Now, before they’re going to seek an idea, they want it much further developed.”
Overall, the project plans to spend $37.5 million to recruit top talent in translational research to ICTSI and $10 million to train and develop new physician scientists, including full scholarships for 50 medical students. Other plans include $6 million to create a “world-class” biobank in Walther Hall (R3) on the IUPUI Campus; $2 million for database management and analysis related to resources in this repository; $2 million for the IU Simon Cancer Translational Research Acceleration Program; and $2 million for international research efforts, including support for the IU Center for Global Health and the IU-Kenya Partnership.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Wilkes' presentation slides.
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Four exemplary CTSI researchers were also invited to showcase their work before their peers at the annual meeting:
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Jeff Schorey, PhD, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Notre Dame, presented “Novel Diagnostics for Global Health,” about his involvement in a project to fight tuberculosis in regions inaccessible to modern health care facilities through the development of a “novel diagnostic tool” that would require no more than a small urine sample to perform instant disease detection. He said the project’s partners include Companion Diagnostics, Inc., a biotech startup that relocated to Indianapolis from Connecticut in order to further their collaborations with local researchers. About one-third of the world’s population is infected with TB, causing nearly 2 million deaths annually.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Schorey's presentation slides.
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Susan Clare, MD, PhD, a physician in the Section of Breast Surgical Oncology in the Department of Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine, presented “A New Approach to Breast Cancer Research,” about the development of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Tissue Bank at the IU Simon Cancer Center, the world’s only healthy breast tissue repository, which maintains tissue samples from more than 900 volunteer donors, including 6,872 DNA samples; 3,186 plasma samples; and 1,749 serum samples. Clare said that the collection’s recent accomplishments include a significant increase in tissue collected from underrepresented populations, including donors of Jewish, African-American and Hispanic descent, the latter representing almost 14 percent of tissue donors in 2009. She also discussed the project’s plans to create an online resource for breast cancer researchers around the world, funded by a $1 million grant from Oracle earlier this year.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Clare's presentation slides.
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Jessica Huber, PhD, Associate Professor of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University, presented “Device-Delivered Cueing to Treat Speech in Parkinson’s,” about her work to develop a simple wearable audio device that prompts Parkinson’s patients to speak louder in response to stimulated background noise, or “babble,” similar to the low chatter heard in a restaurant. Nearly 90 percent of Parkinson’s patients will develop voice problems, and 45 percent articulation problems, she added, both of which impact intelligibility and severely impair patients’ quality of life. Thirty patients are currently enrolled in the study, with many showing voice and speech improvements after only eight weeks of therapy, even without the device. Continued effects have been measured as far out as six months after original treatment, she said.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Huber's presentation slides.
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Ronald T. Ackermann, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, presented “Community Based Diabetes Prevention: The YMCA Model,” about the implementation of a lifestyle intervention program aimed at persons at risk for developing Type 2 Diabetes. This program uses materials that were adapted from the NIDDK’s Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and, through a partnership with local YMCAs, has been delivered to community volunteers and patients in Indiana University Medical Group and Wishard primary care practices throughout Indianapolis. Early research is promising, said Ackermann, pointing out that participants have succeeded in reaching the goal of losing an average of at least 5 percent of their body weight and in keeping it off for as long as 28 months. Partnering with the YMCA results in significant cost savings compared to the original DPP program upon which his project is modeled, he added, and noted that active attempts to expand the project to cities beyond Indianapolis are ongoing.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Ackermann's presentation slides.
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The final two speakers presented on biobanks:
“A Case for Good Governance: Consent, Public Trust, Commercialization and Other Issues for Biobanks,” Timothy Caulfield, LLM, Professor of Health Law at the University of Alberta
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Professor Caulfield presented on the ethical, legal and policy challenges facing modern biobanks, including many issues that remain largely unresolved.
“These challenges are all arguments in favor of a robust governance structure,” said Caulfield, noting “a strong interface between the public/research participants and researchers” is required in order to effectively manage patients’ concerns related to consent, public trust and commercialization.
He also noted that despite being more time-consuming and costly, approximately 75 percent of the public favors an “ongoing consent” model, in which permission to use tissue or other samples is sought from patients before each research study, according to a recent study by the American Journal of Public Health.
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“National Virtual Biorepository,” Lorraine Frazer, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, Director of the TexGen/CTSA Biobank at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
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Dr. Frazer also presented on the legal and ethical challenges that face biobanks—in fact, she said improper consent procedures recently brought about a legal challenge in which Texas A&M University was ordered to destroy as many as four million blood samples collected from infants and stored for research without parental permission—but emphasized that if done right biobanks are worth the challenge, as they provide significant benefits to researchers.
“If you create your biobank thinking about health impacts, it will be successful,” she said. “If you create your biobank simply to collect millions of samples…you’re not going to have effective outcomes.”
The next step for biobanks will be to implement a system to facilitate shared resources across multiple institutions, Frazer added, a difficult challenge that will require the development of an automated online sample request system, including standard protocols for common transactions such as sample requests, approvals and releases.
Please click HERE to view Dr. Frazer's presentation slides.
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The main meeting was followed by a series of breakout sessions focusing on specific topical issues relevant to Indiana CTSI.
Breakout sessions:
“Comparative Effectiveness,” Drs. William Tierney and Brad Doebbeling
William Tierney, MD, Chancellor’s Professor and Joseph J. Mamlin Professor of Medicine, and Bradley Doebbeling, MD, Professor of Health Services Research and Medicine, opened this breakout session with a presentation on Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), providing the NIH definition as “the generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent diagnosis, treat and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care.” He described the purpose of CER as a mechanism “to assist consumers, clinicians, purchasers, and policy makers to make informed decisions that will improve health care at both the individual and population levels.” According to the Institute of Medicine, the top priority areas for CER include burden of disease, cost and variability in treatment. Everyone—payers, providers, patients and Congress—all want to know what actions will produced the “best bang for the buck,” said Tierney. Please click HERE to view presentation slides from this breakout session.
“Health Informatics Initiatives,” Drs. Barbara Hayes and Joseph Marcus Overhage
Barbara Hayes, MSW, MS, Associate Dean for Administration and Planning, School of Informatics, and J. Marcus Overhage, PhD, MD, Regenstrief Professor of Informatics, hosted a breakout session about health information technology initiatives in Indiana, including the Healthcare and Informatics Collaborative at Indiana University (HICIU), as well as some of the benefits and challenges involved in implementing effective health information systems. The greatest challenge involves achieving “patient-centered cognitive support,” or using good health information in order to seamlessly assist physicians in making smarter decisions about patient health. Other challenges include enabling point-of-care innovations; managing large-scale data; developing an automated system for capturing provider-patient interactions; and facilitating data sharing and collaboration. HICIU’s philosophy for achieving these goals involves a "two-pronged” approach: bringing medical and computational researchers into proximity in the clinical setting and also engaging the business community to transfer their best practices from other industries into health care and review existing health information producing and application for the rapid creation of design-built projects. Please click HERE to view presentation slides from this breakout session.
“Building a Biorepository,” Drs. David Flockhart and Eric Meslin
David Flockhart, MD, PhD, Harry and Edith Gladstein Professor of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, and Eric Meslin, PhD, Director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics, hosted a breakout session extending the conversation begun by Caulfield and Frazier about the challenges that face biobanks, including issues related to consent and poor public perception raised by those who fear the storage and use of their DNA for scientific research. Participants brainstormed solutions to poor public perception of biobanks, including placing emphasis on the altruistic motives for tissue donation and providing assurance that non-profit researchers gain the most from biobanks, not large pharmaceutical companies. Please click HERE to view presentation slides from this breakout session.
“Novel Technology Updates,” Drs. Kenneth Cornetta and Howard Edenberg
Kenneth Cornetta, MD, Chair of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Joe C. Christian Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics, and Howard Edenberg, PhD, IUPUI Chancellor’s Professor and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, presented an overview about the many resources available to researchers at Indiana CTSI. These include sample storage facilities; educational services such as assistance with compliance education; and TTR (Translational Technologies and Resources) funding opportunities, including $10,000 pilot grants, equipment grants, a pilot biorepsoitory program and assistance negotiating contracts with industrial partners. The presenters also focused on several specific research cores, such as high-tech imaging and bioinformatics resources, and also various genomic technologies, including microarrays, gene expression and genotyping. In addition, Drs. Cornetta and Edenberg pointed out that Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame are collaborating to ensure that they don’t duplicate technologies available on their campuses, but rather enhance one another’s capabilities through resource sharing. Please click HERE to view presentation slides from this breakout session.
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