CCTS Partners

The UIC CCTS is one of 60 medical research institutions working together as a national consortium that are transforming the way biomedical research is conducted. The program enables innovative research teams to speed discovery and advance science aimed at improving our nation's health. The program encourages collaborative teams of diverse investigators to tackle complex health and research challenges and then find ways to turn their discoveries into practical solutions for patients. These teams already are making progress across a broad range of diseases and conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and heart disease. Click here to access the CTSA Progress Report, 2009-2011

The consortium, funded through Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), shares a common vision to reduce the time it takes for laboratory discoveries to become treatments for patients, and to engage communities in clinical research efforts. It also is fulfilling the critical need to train a new generation of clinical researchers. The CTSA program is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), a new center with National Institutes of Health. To read more about the establishment of NCATS, click here

For more information on CTSA visit https://www.ctsacentral.org/ or read the fact sheet.

To set a national research agenda, the CTSA consortium established five overarching strategic goals that will guide consortium-wide activities:
1. Build National Clinical and Translational Research Capability
2. Provide Training and Improving the Career Development of Clinical and Translational Scientists
3. Enhance Consortium-Wide Collaborations
4. Improve the Health of our Communities and the Nation
5. Advance T1 Translational Research

Partners

The CCTS has partnered with other University of Illinois Urbana, Rockford, and Peoria campuses, the Jesse Brown VA Hospital and Medical Center (JBVAMC), and Advocate Health Care.  These relationships extend the geographic scope of CCTS activities to the greater Chicago area and the statewide University of Illinois system, and set the groundwork for building research communities that are focused on human health needs.

The JBVAMC is adjacent to the UIC campus and approximately two blocks from the academic home of the CCTS. The JBVAMC has affiliations with UIC and the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Eighty percent of physicians at the JBVAMC maintain faculty appointments at UIC. In addition to the hospital, JBVAMC operates five satellite outpatient centers throughout the greater Chicago area. JBVAMC is a tertiary care facility serving the needs of over 40,000 veterans living in Chicago, its suburbs, and northwest Indiana.  Research activities at JBVAMC currently include 243 active human studies with over 2100 participants, and the facility has capacity for significant growth in research activities.

Advocate is a longstanding educational affiliate of UIC.  The Advocate system consists of eight full-service hospitals and two children’s hospitals, with a total of over 3,500 beds in the greater Chicago area. In addition, approximately 4,600 primary care and specialty physicians serve on the Advocate medical staff in 28 outpatient facilities throughout Chicago and its suburbs. Advocate has strong research interests in both adult and pediatric research. Cardiology and oncology are the primary areas of concentration in adult research.