If you’ve walked behind the Medical Center lately, you may have noticed a giant hole in the ground near the corner of Crittenden Blvd. and Kendrick Road. This giant hole will soon become the home of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, also known as CTSI.

The Clinical and Translational Sciences Award program was started in 2006 by the NIH with the goal of getting institutions to “reduce the time it takes for laboratory discoveries to become treatments for patients, to engage communities in clinical research efforts and to train clinical and translational researchers.” UR was in the first group of institutions to receive a CTSA grant and has become a leader in the field.

The building, which will eventually house 600 people from every facet of the clinical research field, should be completed in the summer of 2011, but this hasn’t stopped translational research from occurring. As the CTSI Web site puts it, UR’s institute has one goal: “that new preventive interventions, diagnostic procedures and treatments get to patients and communities faster than ever before.”

The CTSI is dedicated to bridging the gap between basic science research at the lab bench and implementation in the field. This is done through projects like Associate Professor of Medicine Jun-ichi Abe’s “Generation of ERK5 activator,” which works to identify small molecules that activate ERK5, an enzyme that affects cell growth, with the hope that this information could be used to prevent cardiac muscle damage after a heart attack.

I think the most interesting part about the CTSI is that not only does it “translate” research done in labs into real life, but it also focuses on bringing the Rochester community into research projects going on at the Medical Center. Funding is available for investigators to go out into local areas, find out what it is that would most benefit community members and do research that can be directly implemented to these people. For example, two doctoral students in my department are working on a project titled “Is the Wii Fit Good Enough? A Comparison of the Energy Expenditure from Interactive Physical Activity Promoting Technology to Walking and Running,” funded by the CTSI.

UR’s CSTI Web site is http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/ctsi/. Check it out to see upcoming projects and opportunities to get involved, and maybe you can even find out if that Wii Fit is worth the $90 investment.