CTSA Ansible 03/13/2020

THE SPOTLIGHT

Spring CTSA Program Group Meetings Have Gone Virtual!

The NCATS Spring CTSA Program Meeting has shifted to virtual attendance only in light of the ongoing novel coronavirus public health emergency, the NIH announced Wednesday.

As the outbreak of COVID-19 continues to evolve, the NIH, is urging all large, non-mission-critical meetings and symposia that are scheduled to be held at NIH facilities or organized by the NIH over the next 30 days to either be held virtually, postponed, or canceled. While the Spring Meeting is scheduled after that 30-day period, NCATS, along with the CTSA Program Steering Committee and CLIC, opted for virtual attendance only in order to provide ample notice for participants — many of whom are coming from universities with travel restrictions that exceed the NIH’s recommendation.

Please refer to the CLIC webpage for updates on registration through ZOOM Video Conferencing. CLIC will also send an email to those who have already registered with ZOOM instructions.

WHAT’S NEW

NCATS and CLIC have teamed up to provide CTSA Program hubs opportunities to disseminate information about efforts they are undertaking in response to Coronavirus (COVID-19). A Discussion Forum has been established for those interested in joining and identifying collaborations. Additionally CLIC has created a COVID-19 specific web page where hubs can obtain the latest information from the CDC, WHO, and NIH. Registered users may post any relevant COVID-19 news and educational information developed at their hub, be sure to tag your content with the “COVID-19” tag and also post comments/information on any related topic directly on the page.

Join the 2020 Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab Challenges in Brain Analytics and Integration

A five-day residential workshop for neuroscientific quantitative and biomedical researchers July 20-24, 2020 Boar’s Head Resort Charlottesville, VA

We are asking all NIH-NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Directors to nominate two (2) distinct early-career investigators from a) the biomedical fields specifically including human neuroscience and b) the quantitative and data science disciplines to apply to attend this intensive residential workshop to foster the development of early-career biomedical and quantitative investigator teams. Review of nominations will be rigorous and not all candidates will be selected to attend. Travel and lodging expenses are fully covered for all participants.  All participants must commit to staying for the entire duration of the 5-day Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab.

During the Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab, professional facilitators assist the participants and accelerate the idea formulation process, while scientific experts serve as mentors and impartial referees. Working under the guidance of these mentors, participants will form teams during the workshop to develop interdisciplinary projects to solve mathematical challenges in the analytics of multimodal neuroscience data. The lab will include opportunities for learning about NIH and NSF funding through interaction with program officers. Teams are supported in the development of proposals for submission to funding agencies at the conclusion of the workshop. Application Deadline: 11:59PM Eastern Time, April 17, 2020. For more information please contact Sandra Burks. sgb2c@virginia.edu

Let’s Create a DIAMOND Collaboration!

The DIAMOND project is interested in exploring collaborative opportunities between our respective CTSAs.

DIAMOND is an NCATS-funded online learning community that showcases education and training resources for clinical and translational research professionals. The Diamond Portal is
an online repository of competency-based education and training resources and assessment materials that have been developed and contributed by CTSA sites and partner organizations. The Portal is free for anyone to use, and continues to grow in both scope and reach. Since its launch in September 2018, the DIAMOND Portal has received more than 275 resources from 15 contributing CTSA institutions, clinical research professional associations, and private companies. In fact, DIAMOND has been accessed by individuals in more than 25 countries and currently has more than eight users a day visit the Portal. Diamond is aiming for a goal of having 20 more CTSA institutions upload at least five educational/assessment offerings to the DIAMOND Portal by the end of 2020 and wants your institution to be a part of this growing community supported by NCATS and CLIC.

View our instructional video or visit the Portal site to learn more about how to become a contributor. We also welcome your questions, so please email the DIAMOND Team. We look forward to working in partnership with you!