Success Stories: Translating Science to Caring

By Rob Cahill, Institutional Advancement

Projects from the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston are touching the lives of people in the community, as well as the lives of patients. The center is collaboration among the UT Health Science Center, the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System and the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Here are some success stories.

Students Are Listening
Three in One
Proposal Review Time Down
Collaborative Opportunities

Students Are Listening

When his grandfather had a heart attack, a junior high school student knew what was happening and was able to help. The week before, he had learned how the heart works from his science teacher, Ro Luecken.

The boy said he was able to understand what the doctor at the hospital was talking about because of the information he had learned in class. He was also able to explain the situation to his parents, who spoke limited English.

“This was music to my ears,” Luecken said. “It shows how important it is for students to learn about the health industry in class and to be able to associate it with things that happen in their everyday lives.”
Luecken’s cardiac presentation was based on a supplementary curriculum produced by The University of Texas School of Public Health HEADS UP project, which is supported by a National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Award and the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. UT created six multimedia curriculum modules covering topics such as genetics, diabetes/cardiovascular disease, and nutrition. The School of Public Health provides the modules free of charge to the Spring Branch Independent School District.

“I’ve just begun to recognize the value of having this type of curriculum in the classroom,” Luecken said.

Three in One

Well versed in laboratory studies, but not so much in patient trials, surgeon Emily Robinson, M.D., is taking advantage of a new program that shepherds researchers through the clinical research process.
It helps them utilize the services of the Clinical Research Units (CRUs) at the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

In the past, applying for these services was time-consuming, requiring separate applications for approval of the Institutional Review Board, Memorial Hermann Hospital -Texas Medical Center, and the CRU. To streamline the process, these applications have been combined.

To further facilitate research implementation in the CRU, scientists now can use the CCTS’s SPARK (Scientific Partners Advancing Research Kickoff) program to resolve issues that may delay approval, including protocol design, human subject matters, and budgets. Since May 2007, at least 10 researchers have used the SPARK program.

Robinson, who is proposing a cancer study, said, “The feedback from the SPARK team will help me avoid delays getting my study approved and implemented in the CRU.”

Joy Lilljedahl of CCTS added, “Scientists were having to go back and forth to resolve issues. Now, we work together to resolve issues.”

Proposal Review Time Down

Researchers like Claudia Pedroza, Ph.D., a biostatistician at The University of Texas School of Public Health, are benefiting from shortened proposal review times to promote research that addresses cutting-edge issues in clinical and translational research.

One of the K12 researchers receiving support during the inaugural year of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) at the UT Health Science Center at Houston, Pedroza is skilled in new approaches to designing and analyzing clinical trials using Bayesian statistics. She is involved in two major multi-center clinical trials of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research. One trial involves the treatment of extremely low birth weight infants with jaundice, and the other, the treatment of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in term infants.

Pedroza will work closely with a team of physicians at the UT Medical School at Houston and 15 other centers participating in this research. Her research exemplifies the value of the CCTS in promoting the collaboration between investigators in multiple disciplines and different institutions in research to prevent disability or death in high-risk patients.

Pedroza’s proposal was funded less than three months after it was submitted, and she devotes more than 30 hours per week to this research.

K12 investigators also receive career guidance, training and mentoring throughout their projects, said Jon E. Tyson, M.D., Pedroza’s mentor, co-director of the CCTS Research Education Training and Career Development Component, and the Michelle Bain Distinguished Professor in Medicine and Public Health.

Collaborative Opportunities

Researchers and resources are being matched at think tank retreats organized by the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to identify broad research areas that cross traditional academic boundaries.

At a recent retreat, James Katancik, D.D.S., Ph.D., a periodontist at the UT Dental Branch at Houston who has an interest in diabetes and gum disease, learned that the CCTS includes a Clinical Research Unit (CRU) along the Texas-Mexico border - where one in five of the predominantly Mexican American population has diabetes. Katancik took advantage of an opportunity to visit the CRU in Brownsville.
At the UT School of Public Health Brownsville Regional Campus, Joseph McCormick, M.D., and his colleagues were celebrating the opening of their new, larger CRU facility at the Valley Baptist Hospital and the achievement of the five-year recruitment of a diabetes cohort study involving 2,000 Mexican American participants from the local community.

“If I decide to extend my study of gum disease to the Hispanic community, this facility will be a tremendous resource,” Katancik said, adding “For me, the retreat was enormously helpful.”

McCormick, the James H. Steele Professor and regional dean, commented, “We have a facility where researchers can ask scientific questions that require community-based research by accessing our minority cohort (Cameron County Hispanic Cohort), and the researchers can expect to get solid data.”

The extensively documented cohort is a key part of the Hispanic Health Research Center that was instrumental in developing infrastructure that supports the CRU. Combined with a strong outreach program, the cohort provides ready access to this minority population.

This feature is a special online supplement to this months feature article: Success Story: Light Bulbs Turn On