The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $30.7 million over the next five years to the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI) for the renewal of its NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA). The ACTSI is an Atlanta research partnership focused on transforming the quality and value of clinical research and translating research results into better outcomes for patients.

The ACTSI, led by Emory University and its Woodruff Health Sciences Center, was originally established in 2007 through an initial five-year NIH grant of $30.9 million, along with primary academic partners Morehouse School of Medicine and Georgia Institute of Technology.

"The ACTSI has created a unique opportunity for synergy among historic partners in health care, education and cutting-edge research, and has emerged as an innovative and integrated environment where clinical and translational researchers in Atlanta can flourish," says David S. Stephens, vice president for research in Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center and principal investigator and director of the ACTSI. "The ACTSI is a catalyst and incubator for clinical and translational research across the city of Atlanta, with impacts throughout Georgia, the Southeast and nationally."

The ACTSI unites the strengths of its academic partners: Emory's national leadership in biomedical research and health care; Georgia Tech's leadership and vision in biomedical engineering, computation, and the application of innovative systems engineering to health care solutions; and Morehouse School of Medicine's national presence as a historically black institution that brings ethnic diversity to biomedical research, addresses health disparities through successful community engagement research, and serves as a pipeline for training minority investigators.

ACTSI health care partners include:

• Emory Healthcare,
• Morehouse Medical Associates,
• Children's Healthcare of Atlanta,
• Grady Health System,
• Atlanta VA Medical Center,
• the Atlanta Community Physicians Network and
• Kaiser Permanente of Georgia.

Other key science partners include:

• Emory's Yerkes National Primate Research Center,
• Emory's Winship Cancer Institute,
• the Georgia Research Alliance,
• Georgia Bio, and
• the Prevention Research Centers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The ACTSI has been an extremely successful research partnership that positions Georgia as a leader in improving access to new discoveries that improve health outcomes for all its citizens," says Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. "The refunding of this significant grant by the NIH is a recognition of the ACTSI's many accomplishments and Georgia partnerships and demonstrates confidence in our academic, research and health care leadership to continue advancing health care research and clinical care."

"ACTSI has established strong clinical and research partnerships by leveraging the infrastructure support of the NIH funded Research Centers at Minority Institutions (RCMI) at Morehouse School of Medicine. We are poised to implement innovative patient centered and participatory care delivery models, toward the elimination of health disparities," says Elizabeth Ofili, associate dean for research at Morehouse School of Medicine and ACTSI senior co-principal investigator."

"ACTSI is an important partner to Georgia Tech's Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES) and its FDA-sponsored Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC)," says Barbara Boyan, associate dean for research and innovation in Georgia Tech's College of Engineering and executive director of TRIBES and APDC. TRIBES and APDC have the mission of developing novel technologies using systems engineering approaches, to enhance their commercialization and as a result, improve healthcare practice and delivery. Georgia Tech's educational programs, including capstone design in the joint Georgia Tech and Emory Department of Biomedical Engineering, the new professional master's degree program on Biomedical Innovation and Development, and the joint Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (Ti:ger) program form an ideal environment for ACTSI's success at Tech.