• Expand outreach efforts to minority and medically underserved communities

• Assemble interdisciplinary teams that cover the complete spectrum of research--biology, clinical medicine, dentistry, nursing, biomedical engineering, genomics, and population sciences

• Forge new partnerships with private and public health care organizations

"The impact of the CTSA consortium will be far greater than the number of awards made," said Barbara M. Alving, M.D., NCRR Acting Director. "We're already seeing transformative changes and new partnerships developing at institutions as they prepare to participate. This consortium will spur innovation, integration, inclusion, and dissemination--not only among institutions receiving these awards--but at all organizations involved in health care throughout the country."

The CTSA initiative grew out of the NIH commitment to re-engineer the clinical research enterprise, one of the key objectives of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The CTSA consortium will be led by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a part of the NIH. Funding for the CTSA initiative comes from redirecting existing clinical and translational programs, including Roadmap funds. Total first year funding for the awards announced today will be approximately $100 million. When fully implemented in 2012, the initiative is expected to provide a total of $500 million annually to 60 academic health centers.

The following institutions will receive the first set of awards for nearly a five-year period:

• Columbia University Health Sciences (New York, N.Y.)

• Duke University (Durham N.C.)

• Mayo Clinic College of Medicine (Rochester, Minn.)

• Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, Ore.)

• Rockefeller University (New York, N.Y.)

• University of California, Davis (Davis. Cali
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