Gained in translation
New UF science institute taps the College’s communication know-how
Something big is brewing at the bottom of “Shands Hill,” and the College is playing a key role in the endeavor.
UF’s new Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) aims to help change the way scientists convert their research findings into practical applications – with help from the College.
“We don’t typically do a very good job of training fellows in medicine or PhDs in effectively communicating their research in ways that capture the interest of an audience,” said Dr. Peter Stacpoole, CTSI director and professor of medicine and biochemistry & molecular biology. “The College of Journalism [and Communications] can help us in this area.”
The basis for the CTSI comes from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant initiative that’s encouraging large research institutions like UF to improve the translation from basic science to clinical research and the practice of medicine, Stacpoole said.
UF submitted its bid for the grant, known as the clinical and translational science award, in October.
Debbie Treise, associate dean for Graduate Studies and a member of the CTSI Steering and Planning Committee, wrote a key part of the proposal. Her section, called Novel Translational Methodologies, specifies the ways the College will be involved in this grant.
Potent partnership
Those include educating scientists on improving communication methods, conducting field research on community habits and tendencies, and keeping the UF community abreast of CTSI’s activities.
Already, the College has been furthering the CTSI’s goals, helping, among other tasks, to put together the institute’s inaugural newsletter, Stacpoole said.
The NIH is funding the awards with a $500 million annual budget, according to its Web site.
When the NIH announced the creation of the awards in 2005, UF obtained $213,744 to create the CTSI, Stacpoole said. If the NIH approves UF’s grant proposal, it will deliver the additional funds in July.
The grant will give the CTSI $1.5 million to $3 million annually for five years, after which UF can apply for renewal.
The CTSI plans to eventually have about $5 million a year, with the extra funds coming from UF and other NIH-funded programs at the university, Stacpoole said.
Bridging the communication gap
The College will tell the story of CTSI, Stacpoole said.
This has started with the new, monthly CTSI Newsletter, which the College helped launch. The audience includes UF faculty members, students and staff. Doctoral student Paula Rausch, MAMC 2006, and master’s student Curtis Franklin wrote content for the first issue. They, and other graduate students from the College, will write for future newsletters on topics that range from ongoing scientific research to administrative news, Rausch said.
“One of the key parts of the whole concept of translational science is communication, and it’s not always easy for people to talk about their research with people who are not directly involved with it,” Franklin said. “As journalists, that’s what we do, we do translation.”
Eventually, graduate students from the College will work closely with researchers and medical students on effectively communicating their research to the public, Treise said. They will help teach the scientific community to think about its audience, in terms of health literacy and interest level, and the information it wants to convey before presenting its work.
“Part of our role will be to conduct our own research within communities, gather feedback and report back to researchers and physicians,” Treise said, “so that the most effective avenues of communication are open.”
Far-reaching initiative
The College will also be involved in another CTSI project helping to recruit UF undergraduate students from underrepresented minorities to get involved in health research, Stacpoole said. The students would be paired with College of Medicine faculty members who have research interests in health disparities that exist in those minority populations. The expectation is that students would take what they learned back to their communities and share the knowledge, which is where the College would step in, he said.
To create a multidisciplinary institute, the CTSI has partnered with 12 of the 16 colleges on campus, and each college has a representative who belongs to the CTSI’s Steering and Planning Committee, Stacpoole said. Treise serves as the College’s representative.
“I’ve never seen an initiative like this before,” Treise said.
The CTSI also asked UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) to come onboard, Stacpoole said. Support from IFAS, which has contacts in all of Florida’s 67 counties, will help drive community interaction and involvement across the state. To complete the deal, Shands HealthCare, the South’s largest academic health-care system, and the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, the largest VA health-care system in the U.S., joined the effort.
“What we have here is a statewide enterprise,” Stacpoole said. “That’s a potentially important aspect of our grant application.”
Joining a nationwide network
UF will find out whether it received the award in the spring. If it wins approval, UF will be among 60 institutions out of 125 medical schools in the U.S. with the grant by 2012, Stacpoole said.
The award is crucial in determining UF’s future as a leader in medical and scientific research, he said. The schools that are awarded the grant will separate themselves from other medical schools as centers for cutting-edge research and training.
“This is an evolutionary process for UF and for all of the institutions involved,” Stacpoole said. “We are very new, but that’s the exciting part because it has the potential to transform UF as a whole.”
As an important player in the development of the CTSI, the College has established itself in a field that in the past may have overlooked the value of mass communication, Rausch said. “This partnership and what it means for the College is very significant.”
This article was originally published in the Fall 2008 issue of communigator.
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