CTSI Annual Pilot Awards to Improve the Conduct of Research

An Open Proposal Opportunity

Final Proposal Proposals

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Broadband Multichannel Transmitters for Enhanced Metabolic MR Imaging

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1. Rationale

Surbeck Laboratory for advanced imaging at UCSF, is an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary laboratory that provides unique instrumentation, expertise, and infrastructure to enable the faculty, trainees and staff to carry out translational and clinical research utilizing the unique capabilities of high magnetic fields. Research at the Surbeck Lab has resulted in some of the most advanced MR instrumentation and expertise currently available and has been the source of critical technologies and methodologies in multiple areas of non-invasive biomedical research at cellular and molecular scale.

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.

Developing an administrative data system to investigate the social and health impacts of early childhood programs in San Francisco

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Rational: There is extensive evidence of pervasive social disparities in health, many of which take root in early life. The importance of early childhood in setting the stage for future health and social outcomes is buttressed by rigorous scientific studies across disciplines. However, what remains less investigated is how well this knowledge has been translated to public agencies responsible for implementing early childhood programs and family support services.

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.

Using Mobile Technology and Game Dynamics toRecruit and Retain Research Participants

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Rationale:  Enrolling subjects for longitudinal research studies, ensuring their compliance and retaining them over a period of time pose a significant challenge to researchers. As an example, we had 62% and 30% retention at years 1 and 3 in a recently concluded study on knee osteoarthritis.

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