Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland

with the intellect of researchers impatient for the kind of
discovery that reaches beyond bench to clinic, and beyond
clinic to community.
Through the school’s center for health disparities, the
institute specifically focuses on health care disparities
among underserved populations. The center conducts a
vigilant program in identifying and helping to eliminate
ethnic, racial, geographic, and socioeconomic differences
in the diagnosis and treatment of illness, while promoting
equal access to health care. In addition, it coordinates
patient care, research, education, and outreach initiatives
in Maryland’s underserved urban and rural communities.
All of these capabilities will be directed to the updated
translational goals of the CTSI.
Meanwhile, research areas being especially targeted are
diabetes, heart disease, cancer, infectious & inflammatory
diseases, schizophrenia, transplantation, and head injury.
The school has exceptional translational research programs
in these areas, all of which have high potential for the
development of treatment and research advances with
the capability of being most easily extended into the
community—a critical asset to translational science.
Leadership
In defining the mission, Davis says, “We want to identify
cutting edge treatments for patients, while developing
pathways for translating them rapidly to the community.
Since the beginning of medicine, scientists have questioned
why diseases occur and what processes in the body
are affected that cause illness. This institute exists to
provide the infrastructure that puts together all the components
that contribute to solving the medical needs of our
patients in Maryland and beyond.”
Medicine Bulletin Spring 2012 [8]
He adds that the bench to curbside model has the
advantage of broad participation from all schools on the
Baltimore and College Park campuses, the 12 hospitals and
systems of the University of Maryland Medical System, the
Baltimore veterans’ Affairs Medical Center plus specific
contributions in public health, bio-engineering, pharmaceutical
development and more—all part of an infrastructure
that works jointly toward solving the questions of
‘why’ in the broadest of terms.
Shuldiner explains that, while traditional bench to
bedside research undoubtedly expanded the parameters of
science, there are inherent barriers to advancing from basic
biomedical discoveries to improvements in disease treatment
and community prevention which are better overcome
in the newer translational model.
“Once a discovery is made, additional patient-oriented
research must be performed to determine if the new therapy
is more effective than the current standard. Innovative
strategies must then be developed for the new therapy’s
implementation and adoption in a clinical setting and in
the community. Ultimately, the adoption of new therapies
and treatment of chronic disease in individuals and populations
require multidisciplinary expertise and significant
infrastructure,” he says. “The new institute will serve as a
catalyst to accelerate the entire process.”
Education a Key
One of the most critical components is education.
Shuldiner says it tops the list of priorities for enlightened
translational goals. Davis claims it is absolutely essential to
the mission of the CTSI. The kind of education of which
they speak is bi-directional from laboratory to community,
and from discipline to discipline. It involves the ethical
and legal implications in human research, the multidisciplinary
dynamics in drug screening, the understanding
of statistics and bioinformatics, and the regulatory requirements
so inherent and so necessary in research, both in
this and future generations.
Alan R. Shuldiner, MD Stephen Davis, MBBS