ITHS Accomplishments

Here are some highlights of our first year, discussed in more detail in the pages of this report:

• Over 350 members representing 5 institutions as well as members in the WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho). At the UW, all 6 Health Sciences schools are represented.
• Via our pilot project program we have awarded 47 grants for over $500,000 to investigators representing 9 institutions: UW, FHCRC, Seattle Children’s, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Boise State University, University of Alaska, University of Idaho, Montana State University, University of Wyoming.
• Developed the ITHS-Coulter Fellowship program as a new targeted category of the fellowship program at the UW Business School’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
• Created new education programs: an annual Bootcamp rapid introduction to research, and a monthly clinical research education seminar series.
• Obtained unanimous approval of a business plan for developing a practice-based research network in the WWAMI region and launched the first pilot project (teratogenic drug use in young women).
• Developed joint operations among three therapeutics manufacturing units at UW and FHCRC to improve quality and reduce administrative costs.
• Finalized a collaboration between ITHS Biomedical Informatics Core, UW Medicine, and Microsoft related to exploration of their Amalga software suite in the context of data integration and use of Electronic Medical Record data for research.
• The ITHS and UW School of Medicine Research Funding Service joined efforts and will develop a career development program with didactic sessions for students and mentors as well as a grant writing mentoring program.
• Our Portal service has responded to questions from over 100 investigators regarding resources, grant applications, collaborations, and getting started in translational research.