The Pathway to Discovery Program in Clinical and Translational (CTR) Research is designed to stimulate passion for discovery and provide training and mentoring that will encourage and allow professional students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral trainees to conduct innovative clinical and translational research that improves health and relieves suffering.
The CTR Pathway offers streamlined, coordinated courses of study within both undergraduate and graduate education in health sciences with opportunities for obtaining certificates and advanced degrees in CTR. The Pathway is housed within the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is a training program of the Clinical and Translational Research Training Program (CTST).
The Pathway builds on several established programs: the Pathways to Careers in Clinical and Translational Research (PACCTR) program that supports clinical research training opportunities for medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy students at UCSF; the Resident Research Training Program; and the Training in Clinical Research (TICR) Program, a didactic program that offers a variety of courses, a certificate and a Master's program in Clinical Research. While the Pathway is designed to include trainees from all four UCSF schools at various levels of training, some programs are under development.
For undergraduate professional students, the Pathway offers two major programs: a Core CTR Pathway that requires no additional overall length of training and an Advanced CTR Pathway that typically requires additional years of training and leads to certificates and advanced degrees. Beginning in 2010, the School of Medicine will offer a unique program for select students to obtain both an MD and a Master's Degree in Advanced Studies (MAS) in Clinical Research within a 5-year period instead of the traditional six years. Details of the 5-year combined MD/MAS Program can be found here.
Clinical and translational research describes a broad range of research areas linking laboratory discoveries to medical advances that improve health for individuals and populations. Clinical research includes studies in human subjects such as surveys, observational studies, first-in-human, health services research and all phases of clinical trials. Translational research is divided into two areas: T1 and T2. T1 translational research may include laboratory-based research aimed at clarifying mechanisms of disease; developing measures or markers of disease presence, severity, or improvement; and developing drugs, devices, or interventions to treat disease or to improve health. T2 translational research generally identifies community, patient, health care provider, and organizational factors that serve as barriers and facilitators to translation; develops novel intervention and implementation strategies to increase translation, such as quality improvement programs or policies; and evaluates the impact of strategies to increase translation of relevant healthy behaviors and processes of care.
