GROUNDBREAKING STUDY SHOWS DRUG'S IMPACT ON CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE; CO-AUTHORED BY ITHS CO-PI

A promising study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that semaglutide, the compound in Ozempic and Wegovy, dramatically reduced the risk of kidney complications, heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. The findings of this major clinical trial could transform how doctors treat people with chronic kidney disease, a disease which affects millions of adults in the United States alone.

READ STUDY

CONGRATULATIONS ITHS TL1 LEADER HILAIRE THOMPSON, NAMED EXECUTIVE DEAN OF UW SCHOOL OF NURSING

University of Washington Provost Tricia Serio today announced the appointment of Hilaire Thompson as next executive dean of the School of Nursing, effective Aug. 1, pending approval by the Board of Regents.

Thompson fills the position previously held by Azita Emami, who left in 2023 to lead the Yale School of Nursing. Allison Webel served as interim executive dean.

Thompson already is intimately familiar with UW’s world-class healthcare training and delivery. She’s a professor of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the UW School of Nursing, core faculty at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and an adjunct professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education in the UW School of Medicine.

Professor Hilaire Thompson was selected to serve as the next executive dean of the UW School of Nursing.University of Washington

“Dr. Thompson brings incredible knowledge and dedication to this leadership role, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the profession and the opportunities for the School to advance its history of excellence across the tri-campus system,” Serio said.

“PROJECT ALASKA” AIMS TO BUILD CONNECTIONS AND REDUCE DISPARITIES

The ITHS profile series is meant to shine a deserving spotlight on individuals or programs within ITHS doing critical work across the vast spectrum of translational science. In our June installment, we are focusing on a promising new DEIA initiative from WPRN (WWAMI Region Practice and Research Network) called Project Alaska. The goal of Project Alaska is to enhance healthcare for Alaskans, including Native populations, by fostering research collaborations with primary care practices.

ITHS PILOT PROGRAM AWARDS: APPLY NOW

Letters of Intent due: July 9, 2024

The ITHS Pilot Award Program is designed to help investigators with one of the biggest challenges they face: where to get funding for new projects. ITHS is offering funding to support researchers in translational science—the area of health research that focuses on speeding discoveries from lab to patient—as they take the first steps along the path of discovery. Read on to learn about the specific funding mechanisms.

LEARN MORE AND APPLY

MORE FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES BELOW

VISITING SCHOLAR DISCUSSES HEALTHCARE BARRIERS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

As part of the ITHS Visiting Scholar Grand Rounds Series, Carol Haywood, PhD, OTR/L gave a talk to discuss her research into the kinds of barriers people with disabilities face in the US healthcare system, as well as some of the ways those barriers might be removed. Read more about her research>>

WATCH THE FULL TALK

BREAKING GROUND IN BIOTECH: ITHS EXPO LIGHTNING TALKS

This year’s ITHS Expo showcased cutting-edge advancements in nanotech in medicine featuring two distinguished key note speakers, Dr. Philip Low and Dr. Rodney Ho.

Alongside the keynotes, the event included an hour of captivating lightning talks spotlighting the pioneering inventions in the biomedical realm. Below, we have captured those lightning talks for you, each illustrating incredible healthcare innovation in under three minutes.

Click here to watch the Lightning Talks.

WPRN ANNUAL MEETING 2024

Thank you to everyone who attended the WPRN annual meeting! This year’s WPRN Conference was held in-person at the UW's South Lake Union office. The meeting focused on community building, collaborating with new researchers, & developing strategies to improve our network!

Other Event Highlights

The Northwest Rural Health Conference hit a new high this year, drawing in a record crowd of 544 healthcare attendees living and serving rural communities! For ITHS staff whose work aligns with rural communities, the conference has become an increasingly valuable resource, providing a unique space to explore relevant issues, share expertise, and collaborate with a broad network of rural health professionals.

Join us next year!

If you're interested in the next annual conference, March 24-26, 2025, or thinking about presenting opportunities, feel free to reach out to Dillon van Rensburg at drensb@uw.edu if you have further questions.

TEAM SCIENCE SEMINAR SERIES ONLINE NOW!

Launched during the 2022-2023 academic year, the annual Team Science Seminar Series was developed to assist early career researchers in addressing challenges to collaboration and collective team functioning, improving their ability to lead interdisciplinary teams, communicate and build trust with their collaborators, and identify the best ways to solve problems collaboratively.

The 2023-2024 Team Science Series covers the following topics:

Teamwork and collaboration
Teaming strategies for different contexts
Kicking off a new team and setting team up for success
Team-based writing
Tools for collaboration
Strategies to address conflict
Writing teaming plans for grant applications
Getting promoted as an interdisciplinary researcher
How to find and engage community partners
Addressing conflict challenges including microaggressions, hierarchy, and delivering on commitments
Leadership, delegation, and managing up

Access all of these videos anytime by clicking here>>

ALL SESSIONS POSTED!
LEARN THE ESSENTIALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

All the sessions in our Biomedical Innovation Fireside Chat Series for entrepreneurs are now online and available to watch! These talks delve into product development and FDA regulations for new medical devices, therapeutics, diagnostics, digital health products and more.

These experienced scientists and advisors have been there, in the trenches, and have been a part of bringing impressive new therapies to market. Not to be missed!

NIH WORKSHOP: STRUCTURAL RACISM AND HEALTH RESEARCH

The National Institutes of Health’s UNITE initiative is hosting a two-day virtual workshop on July 18–19 entitled “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding and Addressing Structural Racism and Health.”

This workshop will bring together researchers, clinicians, and community partners with expertise in fields such as social and natural sciences, law and criminal justice, education, public policy, social work—as well as biomedical, behavioral, and public health. Register now>>

WEBINAR: ACCESSIBILITY 101 – HOW TO WRITE ALT TEXT AND MAP PARTICIPANT JOURNEYS

July 9, 2024

Please join the MRCT Center and the Research Ethics Action Collaborative for HRPPs (REACH) for the first webinar in the Accessibility 101 series.

This webinar will feature two interactive exercises in which participants will learn:

Basic information about disability statistics and disability rights, and, as shown through the Accessibility by Design in Clinical Research Toolkit, different types of support that you can readily implement.
How to find the Check Accessibility and Alt Text features in PowerPoint and write appropriate Alt Text.
How to map out the participant’s (and family caregiver’s or supporter’s) journey from different disability perspectives

Register Now

DISSEMINATION AND IMPLEMENTATION SCIENCE INSTITUTE PROGRAM

This in-person program is ideal for doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior and more-established faculty from universities and research institutes who wish to deepen their understanding of implementation science and receive personalized advice from experts on their research proposals.

The Institute will consist of a three-day in-person training session taking place in St. Louis on October 28-30, 2024.

Apply to participate by July 31, 2024. Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit will be provided. Learn more and apply.

NIH GRANTS FOR BEGINNERS

Did you miss the webinar on the NIH grants process for beginners? Not to worry, the event resources are now available! Reference the slides or dive right in to the video, which includes sections on:

Learn the basics with NIH Grants Process: A Walk-Through for Beginners
Tune in for answers to your questions in the NIH Expert Q&A Panel: Part 1
Test your knowledge with Submission Policies: You Make the Call
More questions and answers in the NIH Expert Q&A Panel: Part 2
Take our panelists’ advice: Grant Application Tips from NIH Experts

HYBRID PUBLIC WORKSHOP: AI IN DRUG & BIOLOGIC DEVELOPMENT

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in collaboration with the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), is convening a hybrid public workshop on AI in drug and biological product development on Tuesday, August 6. Please save the date for this free hybrid public workshop that will be held in person and virtually via Zoom. REGISTER>>

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR WEBINAR ON NIH SIMPLIFIED REVIEW FRAMEWORK

Are you an applicant developing your research project grant (RPG) application for the deadline date of January 25, 2025, or beyond? Or perhaps a research administrator providing support as the deadline draws closer? Register now>>

ITHS REDCap TRAINING CLASSES

Every Tuesday @ ONLINE WEBINAR!
11:00am-12:00pm PDT

ITHS offers weekly classes on Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap), a rapidly evolving web tool developed by researchers for researchers in the translational domain. Whether you need to learn the basics or you're ready to take on advanced projects, we have a class that will help you move your research forward. Learn more & register>>

ITHS CDS & CRES SEMINARS AVAILABLE ONLINE

If you missed any of our Career Development Series (CDS) or Clinical Education Research Series (CRES) seminars, you can watch the recordings online.

Access CDS videos here ›

Access CRES videos here ›

UPDATED TL1 OFFERING: UNIQUE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY FOR PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering a unique funding opportunity for students interested in basic or patient-oriented research related to conditions that co-occur with Down syndrome, linked to awards held by ITHS.

New: Predoctoral students at the University of Washington and Montana State University who meet T32/TL1 eligibility criteria can request 2 years of support for stipend and tuition.

LEARN MORE

RESEARCH FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: ADVANCING HEALTH RESEARCH THROUGH ETHICAL, MULTIMODAL AI

The Advancing Health Research through Ethical, Multimodal AI Initiative aims to develop ethically focused, data-driven, multimodal AI approaches to more closely model, interpret, and predict complex biological, behavioral, and health systems and enhance our understanding of health and the ability to detect and treat human diseases. NOTICE NUMBER: OTA-24-095 Learn more>>

ITHS: SUPPORTING RESEARCH EFFORTS OF JUNIOR INVESTIGATORS

The ITHS offers Catalyst Awards to provide “just-in-time” resources especially to early career investigators looking to complete a project or collect pilot data for a larger grant application.

The ITHS also offers Voucher Awards as “in-kind” service vouchers in support of outstanding translational research.

2024 deadlines for the Catalyst and Voucher awards:

July 1, 2024
October 1, 2024

ARPA-H IS A GAME CHANGER. SEE HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) was founded to bridge the gap between discovery and public benefit by supercharging development though significant financial and management support.

a cup of coffee with the seattle skyline in the foam with a set of earbuds beside it

SEBASTIAN TONG FEATURED ON SEATTLE NOW PODCAST

Dr. Sebastian Tong, Associate Director of ITHS' WWAMI Region Practice-based Network, appeared on the Seattle Now podcast, discussing his work in social loneliness and primary care. Listen here!

OTHER RESEARCH HEADLINES:

STAT: Lab experiment shows exactly how heat waves can put hearts into ‘oxygen debt’ (Joel Kaufman, MD, Internal Medicine)
UW Newsrooom: Could your medical record predict cardiac arrest risk? In a study, machine-learning models identified a range of risks among patients who had experienced this sentinel event.
UW Newsrooom: Nearly all syphilis strains in U.S. resistant to azithromycin

The Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) moves research from one phase of the translational science spectrum to the next, and helps others to do the same. From bench to bedside: we take great ideas and help turn them into reality with the aim of improving health outcomes across the spectrum.

Learn how all of our programs work together to build the translational science engine.

Michael G. Kurilla
MD, PhD
NCATS Director of Clinical Innovation

MIKE'S BLOG: FROM A BILL TO A LAW

While we’re not sure what they teach in civics class today (do they even still teach civics?), there was a time when a major topic was how an idea became a bill and subsequent law. In the biomedical field, most can outline the steps from concept to grant to published work. The true ‘last mile,’ whether it’s drug development leading to FDA approval or myriad other types of health care innovations that reach our patients, is a bit murkier. But if we’re talking about healthcare innovation and its eventual impact on patients (as opposed to an individual investigator’s career, journal editors, or institutional reputation), that ‘last mile,’ what happens after the peer-reviewed literature has been ‘disseminated’ is the most critical aspect of our work and needs to involve many more players beyond the lofty, ivory tower biomedical research community, particularly the diverse collection of healthcare systems. If we expect our healthcare systems to evolve along with our scientific and medical research advances, then those systems must be capable of learning, in addition to executing. Read more>>

You Might Like These Other ITHS Headlines

Read more about Expo 24, the ITHS Poster session & symposium

Thomas Vincent, an ITHS TL1 trainee, has been selected as one of the 2024 Husky 100

KL2 PROFILE: Dr. Germán Gornalusse

KL2 Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development program, as well as the leaders who have made this program so successful.

Spotlight on Equitable Community Building with ITHS

New PNW location for one of five entrepreneurial hubs across the United States. Dubbed SIHI-REACH, located at UMontana.

KL2 PROFILE SERIES: Blake Langley ND, LAc

Dr. Sebastian T. Tong, designated 2023 National Academy of Medicine Fellow! Read more>>

ITHS Partners receive $9m grant to explore impact of extreme stress & gender Read more>>>

Stories, profiles, awards and more

ITHS Principal Investigator Dr. John Amory speaks about his research journey in the field of male contraception.

ITHS Faculty Co-Director Tumaini Rucker Coker, MD, MBA, elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Read more>>>

Congrats to these awardees! Now ITHS is looking for additional partners who may be the right fit for new NIH supplements.

How preclinical investigators can start strengthening relationships to better serve their populations.

Congratulations on your NIH appointment, Sean Mooney!

Dr. Chris Goss named as Associate Dean for Clinical Research for UWSOM

Meet our promising KL2 Scholars

An Interview With Seher Aftab at the GCTL, a leader on the frontlines of bridging the gap between scientific discoveries and healthcare treatments.