Childrens Hospital Los Angeles awarded $7M of $56.8M NIH grant for biomedical research

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has been awarded $7 million of a $56.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The remainder of the award will be distributed to other members of the Los Angeles Basin Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). This award, to be distributed over five years, will fund biomedical research with the objective of reducing the time it takes a laboratory discovery to become a clinical reality.

“We are working collaboratively with others on campus and off campus, using LA as a real world laboratory to address issues that are important to the community here”

"It can take 20 years for the knowledge of a new discovery to get into general practice," says Edward Gomperts, MD, co-director of the CTSI Center for Human Studies. "That's just too long if you think of how quickly science evolves. What was effective 20 years ago is antiquated today."

"Our focus on pediatrics and child health allows the clinicians and scientists of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to make a unique contribution to the CTSI. The grant will allow us to continue the successful work at The Saban Research Institute ensuring our position as a leading pediatric academic center in the 21^st century," says D. Brent Polk, MD, director of The Saban Research Institute at Childrens Hospital and member of the CTSI Board of Oversight.

The CTSI is comprised of a multidisciplinary team including faculty from Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, eight schools from the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Department of Health Services and Mental Health, the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County and more than 30 community health organizations in the greater Los Angeles area.

Interdisciplinary projects will leverage abilities from medicine, informatics, film, dentistry, education, law, engineering, pharmacy and social work. "We are working collaboratively with others on campus and off campus, using LA as a real world laboratory to address issues that are important to the community here," says Thomas A. Buchanan, MD, principal investigator and director of the Los Angeles Basin CTSI.

"The objective of this award is to focus on improving the health of a diverse, urban population," explains Michele Kipke, PhD, associate CTSI director for community engagement and director of Community, Health Outcomes, and Intervention Research (CHOIR) Program in The Saban Research Institute at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. "Because of our location we are in a unique position to do this kind of research. Drawing faculty from Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, we can gain knowledge about densely populated urban areas that will ultimately set the standard of care for areas like ours around the world."