Letter from the President

Last month, I wrote how ACTS advocates for the highly impactful work that our representative CTSA Hubs conduct in community engagement, workforce development and rigorous human subjects research across the US. This week, I was pleased to represent the ACTS Executive Committee, along with leaders from the ACTS Advocacy Committee, our Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, the Clinical Research Forum and our Washington Representative, the Health and Medicine Counsel (HMC), to visit House and Senate appropriators in Washington.

We met to inform legislators and their staff about the value of supporting the CTSA program, importance of continued support for IDEA Clinical and Translational Research centers, benefits of supporting the NIMHD’s Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMIs) and return on investment from NIH funding. To be effective, these messages need to continue and further amplified with impactful local stories of successes at your individual Hubs.

Please think about attending “Hill Day” at the Translational Science 2025 meeting in Washington, DC (April 14-17, 2025) to share your successes with your representatives. As individual members and as an organization, we need to work together to articulate a consistent message how CTSA infrastructure, training, community engagement are leveraged to impact the health of our local communities and the nation.

Allan Brasier, MD

ACTS President

Translational Science 2025 Award Nominations due November 21

There's still time to submit your nominations for the Translational Science 2025 Awards! These awards recognize the researchers, educators, and trainees who have left the biggest mark on translational research over the past year. Winners will receive complimentary registration to Translational Science 2025 and have a portion of their travel costs covered by ACTS. The nomination portal closes on Thursday, November 21, so don't wait to give your colleagues a bit of extra recognition!

Translational Science 2025 will be held in Washington, DC from April 14-17, 2025. Start making your plans to connect with colleagues both new and old in our nation's capital!

Submit Your Nominations

News from the Hill

With Congress out until November 12th, legislators are focused on campaigning ahead of the November 5th elections. Medical research, higher education, and health workforce policy items have not been featured heavily by the campaigns. Prior debates related to basic levels of care and access have given way to debates over reproductive rights and out-of-pocket costs. An emerging topic on Capitol Hill with a political tinge has been redundancy and inefficiency in the federal medical research and public health agencies. The House Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill highlights a proposed reorganization of NIH and the elimination of other agencies and programs. More recently, House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans published a report on the COVID-19 response that largely accused NIH and CDC of misusing public funds to overstate the seriousness of the pandemic and ultimately undermine confidence in public health agencies.

ACTS TREATS SIG General Meeting with Chris Rhodes

Join the ACTS TREATS SIG for their next general meeting on Thursday, November 21 at 2:00 pm ET. Guest speaker Chris Rhodes will discuss some of the latest advancements in AI for tracking trainees and scholars.

Anyone interested in attending can register for the Zoom session using the link below. You can learn more about the TREATS SIG and our other Special Interest Groups by visiting our website.

Special Interest Groups

ACTS offers its members the opportunity to participate in Special Interest Groups (SIGs) related to the field of clinical research and translational science. SIGs connect individuals who share similar goals and interests, providing a channel to network and participate in knowledge and resource sharing among peers.

Learning Library

The ACTS Learning Library is the centralized location for all ACTS educational offerings, including partner webinars and past Translational Science recordings. ACTS members receive complimentary access to webinars and recordings.

Translational Science Today

Greenlight study demonstrates effective early intervention in preventing childhood obesity

Combining a new digital intervention with traditional health behavior counseling is helping to prevent childhood obesity.

News From The Hill