CTSI Annual Pilot Awards to Improve the Conduct of Research

An Open Proposal Opportunity

Proposals on Clinical Research

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IT Improvements Needed to Make APEX useful for Clinical Research

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Rationale: The APEX system has been promoted to the faculty as providing a new and extremely valuable means of doing clinical research, especially for discovering previously unappreciated clinical associations such as the relationship of kidney stone and myocardial infarction, etc..  Such associations would be very valuable in discovering underlying mechanisms of disease.  However, the APEX system falls very short of fulfilling this promise, because it has been primarily designed for maintaining information for medical practice, and for billing.  The problem is that it forc

A Digital Clinical Research Center (dCRC) for Translation of Digital Health Interventions

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Rationale: The confluence of online social media, smart phones, and sensor technology is giving rise to a tidal wave of digital health interventions that have vast potential for improving health at low cost. As with consumer software, digital interventions are more likely to be effective if user feedback and determination of effectiveness is sought early and often. At present, however, researchers face high costs and difficulty in developing app ideas into prototypes, testing prototypes on real users, and validating the intervention.

“Idea to Impact” (i2i): Translational Digital Health Program

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Rationale: The rapidly evolving field of digital health has great potential to enhance biomedical research, education and clinical care. Development in this new space is largely being driven by the tech sector, where projects may lack proper clinical focus or scientific rigor and generally do not include health outcome measures to assess effectiveness or impact.

Mobile Study Support Pilot Project

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Rationale: UCSF and the Benioff Children's Hospital have been selected by the national Children's Oncology Group Consortium (COG) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct new Phase I Pediatric Oncology studies. Patients enrolled in these studies who are not admitted to the Pediatric Clinical Research Center (PCRC) Inpatient Unit, will require evening and weekend support for study procedures, including timed blood draws, sample processing and EKGs.

Column kit for analytical method development

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As a core pharmacology laboratory for Center for AIDS Research at UCSF, the Drug Research Unit (DRU) often encounters problems regarding column selection during memthod development. Here I propose to seek for funding to buy 25-50 analytical columns as a column kit for method development.

Data Management for Research Community

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Rational:

CTSI’s Consultation Services Data Management Unit (DMU) is just one of the successful research resources available on campus to help UCSF faculty and staff with his/her research.  Along with many other data management services, the DMU also provides consultation in data processing to help transform research data into a statistically analyzable format.  In our efforts to provide consultation to the UCSF research community, we have realized that some trainees and faculty do not have the programming skills or resources to perform data processing tasks that are necessary to keep their research moving forward.  Complicated data merges and transformations require specific programming expertise to ensure that it is performed correctly.  Data management programmers, who can devote more time and effort to small projects, are needed.  The DMU’s ability to provide these services is very limited.  As a result, we have identified a gap in services that the Data Management Unit is currently able to provide.

Translating Research into Law and Policy

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Rationale: Currently, there is no direct pathway for health sciences research to move from scholarly publications into policy and law. Although some evidence is cherry-picked by advocates and policymakers, legislation often reflects rhetoric rather than evidence. While some translational researchers study the effects of laws or write white papers summarizing the state of the evidence, we know of none who take the approach of working with investigators to leverage their research and write model legislation.

Evidence-based Inputs for Sample Size Calculations: A Web-based Application

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Rationale:  Inaccurate sample size estimation leads to research studies that enroll too few or too many study participants. The former can result in failure to demonstrate anticipated effects and the latter to excessive costs, due to overuse of research participants and personnel time. While there are several important components of a good sample size calculation – including a compelling research question, an appropriate outcome variable, and an efficient study design – here we focus on improving the accuracy of the quantitative inputs.

“Expedited” Expedited CHR submission and approval for Chart Review Research (Category 5)

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Title: “Expedited” Expedited CHR submission and approval for Chart Review Research (Category 5)

 

Rationale: Clinical researchers often perform retrospective, chart-review studies as a relatively inexpensive and quick way of determining which clinical questions are worth pursuing before engaging in more expensive, time-consuming prospective studies.

 

A Clinical Research Toolkit for Surgeons in Low Resource Environments

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Rationale

Less than 8% of orthopaedic research originates in low and middle income countries (LMICs), despite the fact that 95% of deaths from road traffic accidents occur in these countries.  Global partners of the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology (IGOT) have asked for assistance in building the capacity to perform clinical research.  This is important because:

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