CCOS contributes to bringing the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) CTSA Program together as one network. When the&nbsp;consortium moves&nbsp;in sync, ideas travel farther and patients benefit faster.&nbsp;Across hubs, we align people, data, and day-to-day operations. We coordinate groups and meetings,&nbsp;communicate&nbsp;program updates and CTSA&nbsp;impact&nbsp;clearly, and&nbsp;streamline&nbsp;logistics. Program data turns&nbsp;into insights, and shared tools and training help teams act with confidence.&nbsp;

CCOS contributes to bringing the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) CTSA Program together as one network. When the consortium moves in sync, ideas travel farther and patients benefit faster.
Across hubs, we align people, data, and day-to-day operations. We coordinate groups and meetings, communicate program updates and CTSA impact clearly, and streamline logistics. Program data turns into insights, and shared tools and training help teams act with confidence. 

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Leaders guiding policy and collaboration across the CTSA Program. 

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Experts in translational fields sharing strategies with peers and NCATS. 

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Cross hub teams driving translational science forward through collaborative, project-based work.

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Teams from multiple CTSA hubs addressing key clinical and translational science gaps.

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Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program

Get support from the CCOS team for any questions about this website or the CTSA consortium.

See how CTSA-supported work is translating evidence into health, care, and community-health improvements.

Find guidance, publications, and tools to support your research.

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Codified methods, implementation strategies, and evidence-based frameworks for translational research.

Best Practices and Guidelines

Connect with peers, join communities of practice, and access professional development resources.

Community, Capacity Building, and Coordination

Access data visualizations, shared databases, and research repositories across the network.

Data, Analytics, and Repositories

Standardized measures, tools, and frameworks for assessing and reporting translational research impact.

Impact Frameworks, Tools, and Metrics

Peer-reviewed articles from CTSA-funded research, sourced from PubMed and NIH RePORTER.

Publications

Real-world examples, comparative analyses, and narrative case studies demonstrating CTSA impact.

Impact Stories

Explore Impact

This article highlighted a CTSI-supported program that gives students early exposure to authentic research experiences, demonstrating how hands-on participation can spark interest in research careers and strengthen the future translational science workforce. The story showcased CTSI's commitment to training the next generation of investigators while increasing awareness of educational pathways that connect students to clinical and translational research opportunities.

University of Utah

Raised awareness of CTSI training programs and showed how early research experiences build the future translational science workforce.

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Early Exposure to Authentic Research Strengthens the Translational Science Pipeline

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Impact shows how CTSA-supported research and programs move beyond discovery to create meaningful changes in public health, healthcare, and communities.

What is Impact?

It leads to more effective treatments, better patient care, improved healthcare policies, better-prepared medical workforce, and guidance for productive medical research.

Why it Matters

We demonstrate impact through stories and data. Together, they help bring the real-world value of translational science to life.

How to Show It

Clinical research teams must meet complex federal reporting requirements to maintain accurate public records and protect research continuity. Support from the UC Davis CTSC helped strengthen oversight, consultation, and coordination of ClinicalTrials.gov across the institutional research portfolio. In one case, NIH identified a mismatch between information reported in a Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) and the corresponding ClinicalTrials.gov record. As part of what appeared to be a new NIH review process, funding actions could not proceed until both systems were aligned. Tiffany T. Norris, M.S., ClinicalTrials.gov Management Specialist with the UC Davis CTSC, helped the study team navigate reporting requirements, reconcile information across systems, and complete the review process. NIH cleared the RPPR and issued the Notice of Award without interruption. Across the portfolio, this ClinicalTrials.gov support function monitored 704 non-cancer studies and identified 69 issues.

University of California at Davis

<h4>Context</h4>ClinicalTrials.gov records are a public-facing source of information about clinical studies and must be accurate, complete, and maintained over time. For investigators and institutions, these records are also tied to federal reporting expectations, NIH Research Performance Progress Reports, and compliance reviews. When ClinicalTrials.gov records do not align with study documents or NIH reporting materials, investigators can face delays, administrative burden, compliance risk, and possible interruption to federal research funding.<h4>CTSA Contribution</h4>The UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) provided ClinicalTrials.gov expertise, consultation, troubleshooting, and coordination for investigators and study teams. Tiffany T. Norris, M.S., ClinicalTrials.gov Management Specialist with the UC Davis CTSC, supported the non-cancer ClinicalTrials.gov portfolio by providing guidance on Applicable Clinical Trial criteria, registration, record updates, maintenance, results reporting, validation errors, and Protocol Registration and Results System (PRS) reviewer responses.ClinicalTrials.gov support also coordinated with institutional partners to improve systems and workflows, including ClinicalTrials.gov-specific updates to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Initial Review Application, a ClinicalTrials.gov checklist in OnCore to improve National Clinical Trials (NCT) number capture, and support for the NCT Number Re-Attestation Project.<h4>Outcome / Impact</h4>A high-priority example involved Oyebimpe Adesina, M.D., M.S., and the Sickle Cell Disease Bone Pain Study. During NIH review of the study's Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR), a mismatch was identified between information reported in NIH systems and the corresponding ClinicalTrials.gov record. NIH confirmed that it was cross-checking RPPR information against ClinicalTrials.gov records and that funding actions could not proceed until discrepancies between the systems were resolved.As part of what appeared to be a relatively new NIH review process, Dr. Adesina and Clinical Research Coordinator Leyla Teos worked directly with Norris to understand the requirements and determine the appropriate path forward. Through consultation meetings, ongoing coordination, and ClinicalTrials.gov regulatory support, the team reviewed the discrepancy, reconciled information across systems, and successfully navigated the ClinicalTrials.gov review process.Once the required updates were submitted and accepted, NIH cleared the RPPR, and the Notice of Award was issued without interruption.<blockquote>“My sincere thanks to everyone for working hard to help me resolve all the regulatory/reporting issues.”&nbsp; — Oyebimpe Adesina, M.D., M.S., Associate Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine</blockquote>The same ClinicalTrials.gov support function also strengthened institutional oversight. In 2025, this ClinicalTrials.gov support function monitored 704 non-cancer studies, identified 69 issues, and identified four studies requiring registration as of September 2025. The team also helped resolve two major NIH non-compliance threats, including the Sickle Cell Disease Bone Pain Study and a telemedicine wound care study that had received a notice of non-compliance and a 30-day deadline to avoid loss of NIH funding. Through consultation, record review, correction, and coordination, ClinicalTrials.gov support helped protect research continuity and improve institutional readiness for federal registration and reporting expectations.<h4>Why It Matters</h4>This story shows how CTSA-supported regulatory infrastructure can protect federally funded research, reduce administrative barriers for investigators, and strengthen the reliability of public clinical trial information. The impact extends beyond a single study because the same support model can be applied across disease areas, departments, and funding mechanisms. By helping investigators navigate ClinicalTrials.gov requirements and evolving federal reporting expectations, CTSC support helps protect research continuity, strengthen compliance infrastructure, and reinforce public trust in clinical and translational research.<h4>Timeline of Impact</h4><ul><li>Ongoing: ClinicalTrials.gov oversight, consultation, and coordination support is an ongoing CTSC service for the institutional research portfolio.</li><li>2025: This ClinicalTrials.gov support function monitored 704 non-cancer studies, identified 69 issues, and identified four studies requiring registration as of September 2025.</li><li>During NIH RPPR review: NIH identified a mismatch between information reported in NIH systems and the corresponding ClinicalTrials.gov record, and funding actions could not proceed until discrepancies were resolved.</li><li>After required updates were submitted and accepted: NIH cleared the RPPR, and the Notice of Award was issued without interruption. The study team experienced the impact through continued award processing, protected research continuity, and reduced reporting barriers.&nbsp;</li></ul>

ClinicalTrials.gov support resolved RPPR discrepancies, protected NIH funding, and strengthened regulatory reporting workflows.

UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center logo.

UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center

Protecting Federal Research Funding Through ClinicalTrials.gov Support

A new collaboration between the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the University of Florida (UF) is taking a cutting-edge approach to transforming healthcare research and outcomes across the Southeast. The Southeastern Health AI Consortium supports interdisciplinary teams addressing major regional health challenges by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), large clinical datasets, and combined institutional expertise. Backed by $2.5 million in funding, the projects span a broad array of focus areas that affect South Carolinians, Floridians, and the broader Southeast region, including mental health, maternal health, stroke, brain health, and advanced therapies.

Medical University of South Carolina

This unique partnership between two CTSAs is addressing pressing health care problems with ethical AI use.

The Southeastern Health AI Consortium, led by MUSC and the University of Florida, is using AI to accelerate discovery, improve care, and transform health across the Southeast.

From Algorithms to Outcomes: AI is Rewriting Healthcare in the Southeast

SLiCE (Screening Live Cancer Explants) is a breakthrough University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed technology that tests patient tumor samples on living tissue, creating a realistic environment for studying brain cancer. Developed by Drs. Andrew Satterlee, Shawn Hingtgen, and Albert Baldwin, and strengthened by NC TraCS translational science training, SLiCE enables tumors to behave as they do in the body and allows researchers to test multiple drugs within days. This platform has become a UNC Core Facility and is already driving major collaborations to accelerate preclinical drug development, including work with Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar, showing that the repurposed agent EdU outperforms standard chemotherapy in several glioblastoma samples. SLiCE is now paving the way for functional precision medicine, offering faster, more accurate, and personalized treatment insights for patients.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Brain cancer, particularly the aggressive form known as glioblastoma, remains one of the most challenging diseases to treat. Fewer than 10% of adults diagnosed survive beyond five years, and treatment options have changed little in the past two decades. One major reason for this slow progress is the difficulty of studying glioblastoma in a way that truly reflects what happens inside the human brain. Once removed from the body, tumor cells often die, and those that survive typically behave very differently when grown on standard plastic lab dishes. Without a realistic, reliable model of the disease, scientists have struggled to test new drugs or predict which treatments might help patients.At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a breakthrough technology is changing that. It’s called SLiCE, short for Screening Live Cancer Explants, and it was developed by UNC-Chapel Hill researchers Andrew Satterlee, Ph.D., Shawn Hingtgen, Ph.D., and Albert Baldwin, Ph.D. SLiCE engrafts tumors on substrates of living tissue to keep patient tumor samples growing in an environment that feels natural. This creates a tiny, living microcosm of the brain right on a lab bench, giving scientists an entirely new way to study cancer.What makes this approach especially meaningful is how it combines creativity, personal motivation, and the power of translational science training. With support from the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute, UNC’s NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) hub, Drs. Satterlee and Hingtgen learned how to turn a research idea into a real-world medical platform. Today, SLiCE is a UNC core facility being used in major research collaborations, including one with Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar, M.D., Ph.D., to explore promising new anti-cancer agents.<h4>A Personal Motivation</h4>Satterlee’s journey toward developing the SLiCE platform began when he was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer in 2007, when he was 20 years old. As a college student, Satterlee and his family had to navigate a therapeutic odyssey that included brain surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Satterlee’s family sought advice from several top doctors who did not agree on what treatments he should receive, and it was eventually up to Satterlee himself to decide how to proceed. At the time, Satterlee thought, “There must be a better way to do this.” He is building that tool today.<h4>SLiCE Fills a Gap in Cancer Research</h4>Satterlee’s case isn’t unique; studying brain cancer has always been a challenge. Even though these tumors grow rapidly inside patients, they often fail to survive when moved into lab conditions. On plastic lab dishes, tumor cells lose their structure and behavior. In animal models, experiments can take months and the cancer still may not behave in the same way it does in a real person. For this reason, we don’t know for sure if treatments that work in the lab dish will really work in a person.SLiCE offers a “best of both worlds” solution. By placing a patient’s tumor directly onto the SLiCE platform, the tumor continues to thrive in a realistic setting, surrounded by living brain cells. This environment helps preserve the tumor’s shape, growth patterns, and behavior. Researchers can then apply different drugs directly to the tumor to determine which treatments are most effective at killing the cancer cells. Within just four days, SLiCE can generate meaningful results with the speed of a cell culture assay and the fidelity of an animal model. This combination of speed and complexity makes SLiCE especially promising for both preclinical drug development and precision medicine, where treatments are chosen based on how a specific patient’s tumor responds.With SLiCE, scientists can test multiple drugs at once on real tumor tissue, observe how those tumors respond in real time, and generate faster, more accurate predictions about which treatments are most likely to work. &nbsp;Because different drugs might work better for one tumor than another tumor, this approach may allow SLiCE to “customize” treatment to each patient. This powerful approach reflects exactly the kind of translational science the CTSA program is designed to support, turning laboratory insights into tools that can directly impact patient care.<h4>Translational Training That Sparked Innovation</h4>Dr. Andrew Satterlee’s and Dr. Shawn Hingtgen’s training as NC TraCS Scholars equipped them with the translational mindset needed to rethink how cancer models are built. Early in his work with Hingtgen, Satterlee noticed that some tumor cells were not migratory in a dish, but inside the body, they behaved completely differently, rapidly invading throughout the brain. “Why would we design a therapy using a totally artificial model?” Satterlee recalls. Guided by the translational principles they learned through the TL1 (Satterlee) and K12 (Satterlee and Hingtgen) programs, the two scientists and their teams developed SLiCE technology. On SLiCE, the cells grew much like they do in an animal, revealing a far more realistic model for studying disease. This ability to question past teachings, adopt clinically relevant approaches, and bridge basic science with patient?focused innovation led to a multi-institutional U01 grant from the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) and has helped their larger team transform SLiCE into a platform now poised for broad use across many neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and stroke.<h4>A Breakthrough: SLiCE Meets Aziz Sancar’s Discovery</h4>One of the most exciting uses of SLiCE came when Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar and his team discovered something surprising about a lab chemical called <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41474743/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">EdU</a>. EdU is normally used to track cell division, but <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40130554/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sancar’s lab</a> found that EdU can cross the difficult-to-penetrate blood-brain barrier, and cause death of cancer cells.This discovery hinted that EdU might be able to attack glioblastoma in ways that standard chemotherapy cannot.Sancar partnered with the SLiCE team to test this hypothesis by treating patient glioblastoma tumors with EdU on SLiCE. A series of experiments, led by Humeyra Kaanoglu, a PhD candidate in Sancar's lab, and Adebimpe Adefolaju, a Ph.D. candidate in the Hingtgen Lab, showed that EdU repeatedly outperformed temozolomide, the only FDA-approved chemotherapy for glioblastoma. Furthermore, combination therapy studies on SLiCE revealed that EdU may synergize with several other FDA-approved chemotherapies to further increase tumor kill. These studies led to two high-impact publications in less than one year.This early success suggests that EdU, or drugs like it, could become powerful new tools in treating brain cancer.<h4>Toward a Future of Personalized Treatment</h4>SLiCE is helping shift the field toward functional precision medicine, where doctors choose treatments based on how a patient’s own tumor responds, rather than relying only on tumor imaging or genomic information about the tumor. Imagine a future in which a patient is diagnosed with glioblastoma, surgeons remove a small part of the tumor, the sample is placed onto the SLiCE platform, where several drugs are tested, and within days doctors know which therapy is most likely to work. This kind of personalized approach could help patients avoid ineffective treatments, reduce harmful side effects, and improve their chances of survival.<h4>A Translational Success Story</h4>SLiCE is much more than a laboratory technique; it is a model for how translational science should work.<ul><li>A young scientist receives CTSA training.</li><li>The scientist develops a new technology to solve a real medical problem.</li><li>That technology becomes a core resource used by many research teams.</li><li>An inventive (and in this case, Nobel Prize-winning) collaborator uses the platform to test a promising new drug.</li><li>And together, they move closer to improved treatments for one of the deadliest cancers.</li></ul>For patients and families facing brain cancer, SLiCE represents something rare: genuine hope.With the support and collaboration of NC TraCS, the CTSA program, and NCATS, innovators like Dr. Andrew Satterlee are building the tools needed to bring scientific discoveries out of the lab and into the lives of the people who need them most.&nbsp;<blockquote>“We've got to think about things differently,” Satterlee says. “And that's what TraCS and NCATS—and what we—want to do.”</blockquote>

UNC’s SLiCE tests brain tumor samples on living tissue, enabling multi-drug screening in days and accelerating precision treatment insights.

SLiCE: A New Way to Study Brain Cancer and a Powerful Example of Translational Science in Action

How CTSA grants accelerate clinical research, improve patient outcomes, and serve communities.

CTSA Program Impact

How We Count Clinical Trials

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Updated April 9, 2026.

Understanding Impact

Goal #4: Improve clinical research

Navigating the growing landscape of clinical, research, genomic and population health data is a challenge investigators face today. Researchers may know the questions they want to answer, but identifying the right data sources and understanding governance requirements can create delays. A new publication in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science highlights how The Ohio State University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is addressing these challenges through its innovative Data Navigation Program and introduces a scalable framework that could benefit institutions across the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium.The paper, “A Data Navigation Model to Improve Access to Research Data Resources in Clinical and Translational Science,”&nbsp;written by authors Neena Thomas, Ayse Odabas, Soledad Fernandez, Lang Li and Julie A. Johnson,&nbsp;describes Ohio State’s novel approach to supporting researchers through a dedicated Data Navigator who serves as a centralized entry point for data-related inquiries. The Data Navigator helps clarify research needs, connect researchers with the right experts and guide them through institutional and regulatory requirements. By serving as a bridge between researchers and data experts, the Data Navigator helps move projects more quickly from idea to discovery.The publication also demonstrates strong demand for this type of support and how it informed the development of a self-service decision-support tool. In its first 16 months, the Data Navigator provided approximately 75 consultations across a wide range of research questions and data resources. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ctsi.osu.edu/data-and-ai/data-navigator">The Research Data Source Match Tool</a> was then developed to scale up the reach of the data navigator and help researchers identify appropriate data sources and understand associated governance requirements independently.By combining personalized consultation, a self-service Research Data Source Match tool and institutional expertise and technology-enabled guidance, Ohio State’s Data Navigation Program offers a first-of-its-kind model for reducing barriers to research, improving access to complex data resources and accelerating the translation of scientific discoveries into improved health outcomes.

Ohio State University Clinical and Translational Science Institute

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Ohio State University

A new publication in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science titled, “A Data Navigation Model to Improve Access to Research Data Resources in Clinical and Translational Science,” describes Ohio State’s novel approach to supporting researchers through a dedicated Data Navigator who serves as a centralized entry point for data-related inquiries.

New Publication Highlights Ohio State's Innovative Data Navigation Model

The University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) has a long history of supporting investigators in their efforts to obtain external funding via <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.buffalo.edu/ctsi/cores/berd.html" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">CTSI Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD) Core</a> consultations, collaborations and educational resources for study design and statistical analysis.In recent years, UB has expanded this capacity and support with the establishment of UB’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.buffalo.edu/health-sciences/about/our-units/office-clinical-trial-development-implementation.html" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">Office of Clinical Trial Development and Implementation (OCTDI)</a>. The OCTDI serves as a centralized hub for interdisciplinary clinical trial research collaboration for UB investigators and regional and industry partners. Founded in 2024, it was funded by and exists within the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.buffalo.edu/health-sciences/about/our-units/office-vice-president-health-sciences.html" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">Office of the Vice President for Health Sciences</a>, with a physical location on UB South Campus.Serving as OCTDI Director is CTSI BERD Core Director <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://publichealth.buffalo.edu/biostatistics/faculty-and-staff/faculty-directory/gwilding.html" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">Gregory Wilding, PhD</a>, Professor, Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Health Professions. He explains the mission of the OCTDI is to improve the planning and conduct of clinical trials by providing high quality statistical and data management support and workforce training.These are unique offerings for local investigators, Wilding says. “There are larger clinical trial support operations at institutions such as Duke, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins. We are operating on a smaller scale, but the underlying concept is similar — bringing high level expertise together in a centralized resource focused specifically on supporting clinical trials. The OCTDI is the only unit within the SUNY system organized around this type of support.”CTSI Director <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medicine.buffalo.edu/faculty/profile.html?ubit=ssethi" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">Sanjay Sethi, MD</a>, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, says the university recognized the need for a central mechanism to provide large-scale, integrated, comprehensive coordination of statistical and data management activities to enhance existing support mechanisms.“From a CTSI perspective, there is a great deal of synergy between the OCTDI and our BERD Core, which offers biostatistical, epidemiological and research design support to investigators,” Sethi says. “Both the OCTDI and BERD Core are here to provide support before and during the grant proposal process.”A pressing needIt was during brainstorming sessions involving both School of Public Health and Health Professions, Jacobs School, and CTSI affiliated faculty, Wilding explains, that the need for a centralized clinical trial resource was first discussed. The office was conceived to address many of the challenges that arise throughout the clinical trial lifecycle, and to serve as a centralized mechanism to provide large-scale, integrated, comprehensive coordination of statistical and data management activities for common clinical trial-oriented research projects or causes. Wilding says many of these challenges became apparent in the BERD core’s work with investigators in the planning of clinical trials.“Coordination becomes especially important as investigators pursue more innovative approaches to clinical trials, including adaptive designs, which require statistical and data management considerations to be tightly integrated throughout the planning and conduct of the study,” Wilding says. “Having the infrastructure and expertise to support these modern designs can also make investigators more competitive for grant funding.”<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medicine.buffalo.edu/about/leadership_and_administration/jilla.html" title="This link opens a page in a new window or tab.">Jill Szczesek, PhD</a>, Associate Vice President, Research Administration and Finance, OVPHS, notes that the OCTDI fills a critical gap in the infrastructure needed to support increasingly complex clinical research.“Dr. Wilding recognized that as the University at Buffalo expands its clinical research portfolio to include larger, multi-site clinical trials, investigators need specialized operational and development support to successfully compete for and conduct these studies,” she explains. “The OCTDI provides that support in a coordinated and strategic way. This vision aligns closely with the OVPHS commitment to creating an environment where investigators have the resources, expertise, and institutional support necessary to thrive and bring innovative research opportunities to our patients and communities.”University-wide impactIn its first few years of existence, the OCTDI has already had an impact on the research ecosystem at the University at Buffalo. Wilding says the developed trial infrastructure has already been widely leveraged by UB investigators in the creation of competitive clinical trials-oriented grant applications.“The clearest feedback has been the requests for collaboration,” Wilding says. “Investigators have been very receptive to having coordinated support available, and interest has continued to grow since the office was established.”Szczesek agrees that the impact of the office has been profound, noting, like Wilding, that interest in services has been strong.“Since its founding in late 2024, the OCTDI has quickly become a critical resource,” she says. “The team is supporting investigators and study teams across the institution in both proposals and awards, and we are preparing to hire a second data manager to meet growing demands. Our first data manager, Austin Glick, has been so successful that his position is now fully supported through external funding. Further evidence of the initiative of our faculty and their desire to be impactful in the trial space for our community.”“Going forward,” Wilding says, “I hope to continue expanding our capacity, particularly to support larger and more innovative trials while maintaining the quality and consistency of the support we provide.”Due to a high volume of requests, those interested in utilizing OCTDI services are encouraged to contact Wilding at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:gwilding@buffalo.edu">gwilding@buffalo.edu</a> at least two months in advance. He anticipates office-assisted projects to continue to increase in the months and years to come.“The interest we have seen reinforces that this is a resource that UB investigators need,” Wilding says. “Our goal is to continue building the infrastructure and expertise needed to help investigators develop competitive proposals and conduct increasingly complex and innovative clinical trials here at UB.”

University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute

"Improving the planning and conduct of clinical trials"

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State University of New York at Buffalo

The University at Buffalo CTSI has a long history of supporting investigators in their efforts to obtain external funding via CTSI Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design Core consultations, collaborations and educational resources for study design and statistical analysis. In recent years, UB has expanded this capacity with the establishment of UB’s Office of Clinical Trial Development and Implementation to improve the planning and conduct of clinical trials by providing high quality statistical and data management support.

UB Office of Clinical Trial Development and Implementation: A support hub for investigators

When <a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://medicine.iu.edu/faculty/66980/hagopian-william">William Hagopian, MD, PhD</a>, accepted a position with the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research at Indiana University School of Medicine, he faced an enormous task. He needed to transport 25 years of samples critical to his work on type 1 diabetes from Seattle to Indianapolis, and securely store them while he set up his new lab.That’s where the Indiana <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://indianactsi.org/research/cores-facilities/biospecimen-management-core">CTSI’s Biospecimen Management Core</a> stepped in.The Biospecimen Management Core is comprised of two groups, the Clinical and Translational Support Laboratory (CTSL) and the Specimen Storage Facility (SSF). Their goal is to provide cost-effective processing and storage services to researchers connected to the Indiana CTSI and its partner organizations.Rob Orr, director of the SSF and operations manager for the CTSL, said the Biospecimen Management Core is one of very few facilities with the capability and resources to accomplish something on this scale.“We were able to ‘borrow’ unused space in a couple freezers here in the Children’s Clinical Research Center to accommodate the need,” Orr Said.Hagopian, now a research professor of pediatrics at IU School of Medicine, formerly served as a clinical professor at the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Washington. During his time at UW, he published more than a dozen papers, focusing his work on topics related to the pathogenesis and treatment of type 1 diabetes.He also took part in the <a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://teddy.epi.usf.edu/index.htm">TEDDY Study</a>, an international collaboration of six laboratories worldwide funded in part by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), aimed at identifying environmental triggers of type 1 diabetes in children. The study followed more than 8000 children with a high genetic risk from birth to age 15 in hopes of pinpointing factors that cause the immune system to attack the pancreas and ultimately lead to the development of the disease. Unique in its scale and scope, the study has so far uncovered a wide range of factors that influence the immune response and has also led to success in predicting and preventing diabetic ketoacidosis in these children.While the clinical portion of the study wrapped up in 2025, the <a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/new-knowledge-about-type-1-diabetes-large-scale-teddy-study-will-soon-be-completed">data analysis is expected to continue for another ten years</a>.So, when Hagopian was ready to transfer his life’s work to Indianapolis, the team at the Biospecimen Management Core helped to coordinate the safe storage of the samples during the six weeks it took for the researcher’s four freezers to cross the country safely.The team received the first of several shipments and began the process of unboxing and storing the samples on March 5, 2026.By the time all three of the scheduled shipments were received, Orr’s team had 30 large boxes containing 1250 standard cryobox equivalents each. This works out to be approximately 96,000 research biosamples.“You folks were very kind, very accommodating, and hugely helpful every step of the way,” said Hagopian in an email to the team after retrieving his samples. “It feels wonderful to have such able support at IU for translational clinical research. You guys are really a class act.”

Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute

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Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis

The Indiana CTSI’s Biospecimen Management Core helped researcher William Hagopian, MD, PhD, safely relocate and store approximately 96,000 biospecimens after he joined the IU School of Medicine from the University of Washington. The core, which includes the Clinical and Translational Support Laboratory and Specimen Storage Facility, coordinated temporary storage while Hagopian’s laboratory freezers were transported from Seattle to Indianapolis. Hagopian’s collection represents 25 years of research, including work related to the international TEDDY Study on type 1 diabetes. The successful transfer highlights the Biospecimen Management Core’s specialized infrastructure and its vital role in supporting researchers and preserving valuable scientific resources.

The Indiana CTSI’s Biospecimen Management Core coordinates the safe transfer and storage of 96,000 samples for new researcher at IU School of Medicine

Goal #3: Address health needs of populations

Denver Brown, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences at Kansas State University, where his research in the field of behavioral medicine focuses on promoting physical activity to prevent chronic disease and support mental health among young people.Much of Brown’s work is centered on a deceptively simple question: how can researchers, families, and communities help young people move more in ways that are realistic, engaging, and sustainable?“A lot of what I look to do is to try and figure out how we can help young people maintain healthy levels of physical activity or become more active if they are not currently getting enough,” Brown said.That question becomes especially important during adolescence, a period when physical activity often declines. Brown’s previous work has largely focused on adolescents and young adults, including the transition from high school to college, during which many young people gain greater autonomy and take on new roles and responsibilities. During this period, leisure time physical activities such as exercise and sport can become harder to maintain.“We’re already seeing a steep decline in physical activity through high school, but it gets worse when they get to college,” Brown said. “And more recently, my work has broadened to not only focus on physical activity but looking at other movement behaviors people engage in across the course of an entire day. This is important because if our physical activity is decreasing, well, that time needs to go somewhere else, and for young people it is often to sedentary pursuits such as recreational screen time.”Through his Lauren S. Aaronson Pilot Award, Brown is adapting Walk Kansas, a long-standing, eight-week, team-based physical activity program delivered through Cooperative Extension. Walk Kansas has traditionally served adults across the state through group goal setting and weekly educational materials. Brown’s project, Walk Kansas Our Way, will explore how that established program can be updated for rural youth and delivered through 4-H, Cooperative Extension’s youth development program.For Brown, the 4-H connection is central to the project. Cooperative Extension and 4-H already have trusted relationships in rural communities, along with an existing structure for reaching young people and families. Rather than building a new program from the ground up, Brown and his collaborators are asking how an evidence-based program can be adapted for the youth who may benefit from it.“I think with a project like this, it’s good to have a recognition of how the environments that youth are in can really shape how physically active they are,” Brown said. “And that can set the trajectories across the lifespan.”The project addresses a common challenge in community-based health research: programs may work in small studies but never become widely available, adapted for new populations, or integrated into the community systems that could deliver them.“Much of the work that’s been done in these rural settings will be small trials that really don’t make it out into the community, which is unfortunate because we get this knowledge, but we don’t scale it up,” Brown said. “So, we’re taking a different approach where we’re taking a proven program among adults and implementing it into a setting where we can really reach rural youth at scale.”Brown and his team will begin by working with rural youth, families, and Extension stakeholders to identify factors that might help or hinder the program's delivery through 4-H community clubs. The team will use a process called a brainwriting premortem, which asks participants to imagine that a program did not work and then identify the reasons why. This approach can reveal potential implementation barriers before Walk Kansas is launched, including whether the program fits within regular club meetings, is feasible for volunteer leaders to deliver, engages youth with different interests and abilities, and can be carried out in rural communities where transportation, staffing, and access to recreational spaces may be limited.The second part of the project will focus on updating the program materials. Instead of relying solely on long-form print materials, Brown’s team will develop, and test short-form digital content like Instagram Reels or TikTok videos to better reflect how adolescents receive information today. The project will compare youth-created videos with AI-generated videos to understand what rural adolescents, families, and Extension partners find most acceptable, useful, and engaging.Brown said there is also an important balance between measuring physical activity accurately and understanding what movement looks like in real life. Self-reported activity can miss routine activities such as walking to school, riding a bike, or moving between places. Wearables devices can provide a more objective measure of movement but often cannot capture the context of what the person was doing, where it occurred, and why.“There’s a lot more that you miss when you’re just getting self-reports done,” Brown said. “But at the same time, when we move to devices, we lose a lot of the contextual information. We need a balance of both to accurately capture how much people are engaging in physical activity and what they are doing.”To help ensure the project achieves its goals, Dr. Brown has assembled a strong team of Kansas State University researchers and partners with expertise across several complementary areas. Co-investigator Dr. Emily Mailey brings expertise in physical activity behavior change, particularly the development of effective health-promotion messages. She previously helped revise the mass media messaging components of the National Physical Activity Plan. Co-investigator Dr. Karen Eppley, director of K-State’s Rural Education Center, brings expertise in how structural and geographic differences shape access to opportunities in rural communities. And perhaps most importantly, Dr. Sarah Maass, State Program Director for 4-H Youth Development in Kansas, will serve as the project’s community representative, providing critical insight to ensure the adapted program is feasible to deliver within the 4-H system.He sees collaboration as one of the project's strengths.“I’m just really excited about the opportunity to work collaboratively with 4-H stakeholders and use the reach of the Extension system to bring this program to youth in rural communities,” Brown said. “Our recent work with nearly 800 youth enrolled in Kansas 4-H programming has shown that they are interested in programming like this.”If successful, the pilot project will produce a version of Walk Kansas that is more developmentally relevant for rural youth, more aligned with how young people engage with media, and more ready for delivery through 4-H. The work is also designed to support a future larger grant submission to evaluate the adapted intervention more broadly.Beyond physical activity alone, Brown hopes the project can contribute to a larger model for using trusted community systems and youth-informed digital tools to improve health promotion in rural communities.As Extension has expanded beyond its agricultural roots, Brown sees a growing opportunity to support community health through systems that already know and serve rural families.“Extension has evolved from just being agriculture-focused so long ago, to having this health piece now as well,” Brown said. “Which is really exciting.”

Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Kansas

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Kansas State University

Denver Brown, Ph.D., from Frontiers CTSI partner institution Kansas State University, using Lauren S. Aaronson Pilot Award funding to work with rural youth to encourage more physical activity. 

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The Indiana CTSI’s Biospecimen Management Core coordinates the safe transfer and storage of 96,000 samples for new researcher at IU School of Medicine

Walk Kansas Our Way: Digital Adaptation of a Community-Based Physical Activity Program for Rural Youth

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