(New York, NY – July 14, 2009) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today that Mount Sinai School of Medicine has received a Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA) for $34.6 million over the next five years. The CTSA will help support a new research paradigm at Mount Sinai that will facilitate the translation of breakthrough research from bench to bedside and will be led by Hugh Sampson, MD, Dean for Translational Biomedical Sciences, Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, and the Kurt Hirschhorn Professor of Pediatrics.
Launched in 2006, CTSA is an innovative program designed to improve collaboration among researchers pursuing basic and clinical research. All CTSA recipients belong to a national consortium of medical research institutions who share a common goal of expediting scientific discoveries into therapeutics that improve patients' lives. CTSA now supports 46 medical research institutions in 26 states. The CTSA consortium is funded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a part of the NIH, and provides laboratory scientists and clinical researchers the resources and training to help detect, treat, and prevent disease.
"We are very proud to have received such a significant and prestigious award from the NIH," says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of The Mount Sinai Medical Center. "Translational research has been synonymous with Mount Sinai since the founding of our hospital in the mid-nineteenth century, when our doctors turned to their microscopes to better understand the conditions they had just encountered in their patients. This CTSA will help support bold thinking and disciplined science that can change the face of medicine."
"Receiving the CTSA not only enables Mount Sinai to establish the infrastructure to facilitate translational research, it also enables Mount Sinai to offer a range of new educational programs that will provide the translational investigators of the future," says Dr. Sampson.
The research will be conducted under a new centralized, multi- and also interdisplinary structure known as the Mount Sinai Institutes for Clinical and Translational Sciences (MSICTS). The new MSICTS will enable translation of basic scientific discoveries into clinical practice by creating an effective, efficient and centralized research administrative structure; fostering and rewarding interdisciplinary collaborations; educating and retaining new clinical and translational investigators; and delivering new therapies and an improved standard of care to its diverse community.
Mount Sinai redesigned its research infrastructure by integrating research functions across departments, which helps promote interaction between basic scientists and clinical investigators. The institution will also streamline its administrative procedures for new clinical trials and the dissemination of results.
MSICTS also features a Translational Discoveries Program to provide consultation, oversight, and facilities for clinical and translational research; engage the community and its affiliates to translate health benefits to the public; and develop new methodologies to improve trial design and reduce participant burden. In addition, an innovative Experimental Therapeutics and Technologies Program will identify and develop novel clinical and translational research projects, and connect basic and clinical researchers, caregivers and laboratories through an integrated network of information.
About The Mount Sinai Medical Center
The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The Mount Sinai Hospital is one of the nation's oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. Founded in 1852, Mount Sinai today is a 1,171-bed tertiary-care teaching facility that is internationally acclaimed for excellence in clinical care. Last year, nearly 50,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients, and there were nearly 450,000 outpatient visits to the Medical Center.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine is internationally recognized as a leader in groundbreaking clinical and basic science research, as well as having an innovative approach to medical education. With a faculty of more than 3,400 in 38 clinical and basic science departments and centers, Mount Sinai ranks among the top 20 medical schools in receipt of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. For more information, please visit www.mountsinai.org.