University of Iowa CTSA Spawns Collaborative Nanotechnology Research

Like most of the academic institutions in the CTSA consortium, the University of Iowa (UI) is a large organization. The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS), which includes all colleges of the UI, helps researchers and trainees across a range of disciplines identify and communicate with people who can provide the skills needed for a particular study or type of training. This spirit of teamwork was displayed most prominently last summer.

June of 2008 brought the worst flooding ever to Iowa City and the UI. Many treasured buildings along the Iowa River, which winds through campus, were affected, including the Iowa Advanced Testing Lab. The lab—a 124,439-square-foot building designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry—is home to several research centers, including the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute (NNI@UI), a key partner of the ICTS. The flood briefly halted all research, but, in a display of true collaboration, the university community came together, building sandbag walls as high as 10 feet to try to save the buildings. These efforts allowed staff and faculty to move much of the lab’s equipment to higher ground, set up temporary labs at other locations and revise schedules, thanks to the willingness of many grant sources to be flexible with contract deadlines.

The NNI@UI was established at the UI in 2006 to focus on issues related to the applications and implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology in environmental processes and human health, as well as the fundamental properties of nanomaterials. Directed by Dr. Vicki Grassian, an associate director of the ICTS, the NNI@UI is closely partnered with the ICTS and focuses much of its research on translational medicine and the societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Its core collaborative efforts include faculty and staff from the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Pharmacy, Medicine and Public Health. The ICTS provides the environment within which researchers can gather to share ideas on nanoscience, nanoengineering, nanomedicine and nanotechnology.

One notable collaboration fostered by the ICTS involves researchers from the College of Dentistry and the NNI@UI. The researchers are applying nanotechnology to oral implants, using it to optimally express the bone proteins needed for formation and allowing bone cells to gain a position on the implant surface. Here, bone proteins and cells are being changed structurally, which can only be achieved at the nano level. Researchers agree that nanotechnology has many possible applications for oral implants—from soft tissue attachment stability to drug delivery to nanomolecules that have specific jobs. As dentists become more inclined to incorporate nanotechnology and more trusting of its benefits, patients will see faster treatment, fewer procedures and reduced costs.

Community Engagement KFC—Part 2—Sharing Local Activities

CTSA institutions are starting innovative programs to advance the goals of community engagement in clinical and translational research. This goal may be achieved by welcoming the community into the research enterprise, integrating study findings into community practice settings or some creative combination of both. The Community Engagement Key Function Committee is gathering examples of best practices in community engagement, some of which are described here.

Capacity Building in Chicago
The Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) is the community-based participatory research program of the Community-Engaged Research Center in the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. The 11 diverse community-based organizations that serve as members of the ARCC Steering Committee collaborated to apply for and have received a $250,000 grant from The Chicago Community Trust. With the funding, each organization will assess its research skills, interest areas and readiness to engage in research partnerships, then develop plans to increase research capacity and skills. In addition, each organization’s members will serve as community-engaged research teachers, mentors and ambassadors to other community organizations and their members, creating new infrastructure and leaders for ongoing community participation in research.

Engaging Underserved Communities
In January, the CTSA Community Engagement program and the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), in Sacramento established an agreement with the Secretariat of Health of Oaxaca, Mexico, to provide health services using UC Davis’s telehealth technologies to connect rural community health centers in California with clinicians in both Oaxaca and the UC Davis Medical Center. The agreement provides a high-tech solution to reach and improve the health of underserved Mixteco immigrants across California. An unexpected benefit of this innovative effort was illustrated in February, when a badly burned young girl recuperating in Sacramento enjoyed an emotional reunion via teleconference with members of her family in Oaxaca. This family encounter had such a positive impact on the young girl that she was discharged from the hospital three weeks early.

Spreading GoodNEWS Around Texas
The Community Health Research Initiative of the North and Central Texas Clinical and Translational Sciences Initiative gave rise to the GoodNEWS (Genes, Nutrition, Exercise, Wellness and Spiritual Growth) Lifestyle Enhancement Program. GoodNEWS trains lay health promoters throughout north and central Texas in enhancing their own lives and the lives of others in their congregations and communities. The program currently helps congregation members embrace spiritual, mental, intellectual, social, physical and environmental health practices. A randomized clinical trial supported by the NHLBI Community Participation in Research Program is evaluating the effect of the program on increasing physical activity and healthy nutrition and improving markers of chronic disease. As of 2008, GoodNEWS had trained close to 150 lay health promoters from 80 congregations. GoodNEWS congregations have increasingly become health resources for their communities, strengthening a sustainable community-based infrastructure for reducing the prevalence of chronic disease through permanent lifestyle change.

Going to the Heart of a Rochester Community
The University of Rochester Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute’s Center for Community Health recently moved from the main campus into a renovated historic landmark in the heart of the Rochester community. Center staff have noted an increase in traffic at their new site and attribute it to increased visibility, free parking and improved resources in the health library. The Center for Community Health is novel not just for its location but also because it focuses on improving access to health research through bidirectional communication with underserved populations, including African Americans, Latinos and the hearing impaired. The Center includes free meeting space for community use and a health research library that provides individuals from the community access to books (to read at the Center or borrow) and computers, as well as real-time access to the University of Rochester Medical Center library staff via webcams.

More Information

 
Six CTSA Sites Funded for Clinical Research Network Collaboration

NCRR and the NIH Roadmap initiative announce six recipients of the Clinical Research Network Feasibility Awards (CRNFAs). The six CTSA institutions will receive funding for one year to establish sustainable CTSA collaboration with existing government-funded research networks or clinical practice networks. The CRNFA program specifically supports research focused on translational science dissemination, analysis of cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness, and community engagement.

CTSA Investigator Award Recipients:

• Yale University will collaborate with the Advanced Practice Registered Nurses’ Research Network (APRNet) to create a larger, interdisciplinary, practice-based research network to conduct clinical research studies within the community and facilitate the translation of research findings into clinical practice.
• The University of California, San Francisco, will join with the Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland to improve community participation in clinical trials on thalassemia.
• The University of Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) and the Michigan Primary Care Association (MPCA) will collaborate to develop tools to improve chronic disease management.
• Duke University Medical Center and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, along with the Research Careers in Minority Institutions Translational Research Network (RTRN) will develop standards and interoperable software for clinical data collection and management.
• The University of Pittsburgh will collaborate with the NHLBI-sponsored Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) to create a Community Advisory Network that will facilitate conducting emergency care research.
• Indiana University School of Medicine will implement a shared governance approach in a multi-institution collaboration involving the Indiana Family Practice Research Network (INET), the Indiana University Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network (ResNet) and the Indiana University Pediatric Practice-Based Research Network (PResNet). The goal is to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of recruitment efforts in community practice settings through an exploration of the feasibility of adapting existing technologies.

Breaking Down Barriers

The awards grew out of Westat’s report on network practices for the Inventory and Evaluation of Clinical Research Networks Program, a component of the NIH Roadmap Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise Initiative aimed at enhancing the efficiency and productivity of the clinical research enterprise. As part of the project, Westat compiled a public online searchable database of clinical research networks.

NIH sees collaboration within and across networks as a vital component of the transformative research enterprise. However, Westat pinpointed a number of challenges, barriers and tensions associated with attempts at collaboration and with nurturing and sustaining them. The CRNFAs are intended to support mutually beneficial, sustainable partnerships that break down these barriers.

CTSA Social Networking Analysis Training Workshop Defines Three Focus Areas

The CTSA Social Network Analysis (SNA) Training Workshop, hosted by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) on February 25-27, 2009, included more than 50 CTSA program evaluators and informatics teams from 23 CTSA institutions.  Program evaluators and informatics experts from UC Davis, University of Rochester, CaseWestern Reserve University, University of Washington, Northwestern University and Columbia University presented recent experience using SNA to evaluate aspects of their CTSA institutions. 

Following a pre-workshop session where participants described how they are currently using SNA and what they hoped to learn, the workshop included a full day of hands-on instruction in the basic concepts, tools, and techniques of social network analysis, as well as presentations on appropriate data sources for SNA, how to collect data, and using imaging tools for drawing networks. 

CTSA investigators also presented recently completed SNA projects that could be replicated by other institutions, including analyses of the relationships among CTSA key functions and research collaboration networks using bibliographic data.  Other presentations focused on the theory and context for SNA within CTSA evaluations.  A group discussion addressing how SNA can be used to facilitate the strategic goals of facilitating social networking among researchers and other possible uses for CTSA across the consortium wrapped up the workshop sessions.

The workshop led to some important synergies as well as enthusiasm for a future workshop or symposium.  Participants agreed to focus their activities on three areas in the coming months, including:

Continued collaboration among institutions undertaking analyses presented at the workshop.  With the training received at the workshop, several evaluators will be undertaking one or more of the presented model analyses at their own institutions in consultation with workshop presenters.  One group will replicate the CTSA Key Functions analysis presented by Case Western Reserve University, while another group plans to undertake bibliographic analyses utilizing the Columbia University tools and approach.  The group agreed that it would be very useful for the individuals who are conducting these analyses to meet again in about one year for an opportunity to compare their experiences, receive further input from the experts, and look at results from a cross-institutional perspective.

New analyses of the networks of CTSA institutions and their communities.  Workshop participants agreed that social network analysis would be useful for studying the University–Community connections facilitated by CTSA.  The University – Community connections is an area in which networking tools and analysis have not yet been specifically explored.  A subgroup of participants will begin conceptualizing a study from a community engagement perspective. A future workshop or symposium could specifically include a focus on tools and techniques for studying university-community networks.

Inferential as well as descriptive uses for SNA.  The types of analyses can be extended to include not only descriptions of networks but also inferences about them.  The SNA workshop provided instruction in SNA basics and descriptive tools, however, participants expressed an interest in learning more about how SNA can assess outcomes of CTSA.  More instruction in these methods would be welcomed by the group.

The workshop evaluations reflected a positive experience for the participants who found the instruction and examples extremely helpful and indicated that the majority of the participants thought their experience at the CTSA SNA Workshop would lead to new working relationships, new partnerships, or collaborations beyond their previously established network of professional contacts.   Attendees also said that they planned to work on a social network analysis at their own institution following this workshop.

The group will use the bi-monthly conference call of the SNA Interest Group to define next steps and assign ownership to tasks with the expectation that three subgroups will be identified to serve the needs of the participants who want to work in the three identified areas of Key Functions Analyses, Bibliometric Analyses, and University-Community Analyses. 

For more information, contact Julie Rainwater, UC Davis CTSC at julie.rainwater@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.