Collaborations

At 34 million dollars, the CTSA is one of the largest grants ever received by The Ohio State University. The Principal Investigator is Dr. Rebecca Jackson, Associate Dean for Clinical Research, OSU College of Medicine. Not only did this award set the stage to transform clinical and translational research, it also created an opportunity to intensify collaborative research between Nationwide Children’s and OSU.  The Research Institute serves as subcontractor and receives about $200,000 annually in support of the CCTS. In addition, faculty members on the Nationwide Children’s campus are eligible to compete for pilot and training grants originating from the CCTS. A dedicated website: ccts.osu.edu, includes information about upcoming seminars at each institution, available resources and funding opportunities.    

Thanks to the CTSA, Nationwide Children’s and OSU both will participate in ResearchMatch.org, a secure, electronic volunteer recruitment registry designed to allow individuals from around the country an opportunity to be considered for participation in research studies, including clinical trials.  The CCTS on the main OSU campus and Clinical Research Services on the NCH campus offer Clinical Trial Recruitment/Retention Services to help research teams achieve their recruitment goals.    
  [hide]

Because of this agreement, review by only one Institutional Review Board (IRB) is necessary for any human subjects research conducted on either campus. This means the Nationwide Children’s IRB will accept the IRB approval from OSU in lieu of its own review and approval and vice versa. The agreement streamlines the process of IRB approval significantly as duplicative applications are not required.

  [hide]

Since 2005, John Campo, MD, has served in a joint position between Nationwide Children’s and OSUMC as professor and chief of the division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at OSU and medical director of Behavioral Health and chief of Psychiatry at Nationwide Children’s.

Most recently, Peter Houghton, PhD, was hired as director of the Center for Childhood Cancer at The Research Institute and also plays an integral role with the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
  [hide]

The Adolescent and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program at Nationwide Children’s and OSUMC exists to fulfill this need. A multi-specialty clinic held at Nationwide Children’s and at Ohio State’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital combines the comprehensive resources of OSUMC with the expertise in congenital diseases of Nationwide Children’s. The group also facilitates a combined adult and pediatric cardiology fellowship program. 
  [hide]

This training program is the first in the country that focuses on cardiovascular disease as a continuum from fetal life to senescence, allowing Nationwide Children’s and Ohio State to be well-positioned to have a measurable impact on cardiovascular disease, and to foster new collaborative opportunities between the institutions.

Pamela A. Lucchesi, PhD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Terry S. Elton, PhD, interim director of the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute at OSUMC, are co-principal investigators for the grant.
  [hide]

The Research Institute, Nationwide Children’s, OSUMC and OSU have developed the Ohio Perinatal Research Network (OPRN), a research collaborative involving dozens of faculty members dedicated to a better understanding of preterm birth and its complications. A major initial effort of the OPRN will be a research repository for clinical data and specimens from infants delivered prematurely and their mothers. These initial efforts will facilitate large grant applications to the NIH and other agencies that will be available to researchers at the collaborating institutions. The groups are also partnering to recruit additional scientists to the program. Nationwide Children’s and OSUMC are also teaming with OhioHealth, Mt. Carmel and additional community partners in the Ohio Better Births Outcome project (OBBO). OBBO is a community outreach program aimed at mothers and physicians to prevent preterm births.
  [hide]

These shared grants are awarded as clinical grants, laboratory grants or public health grants and provide winners with up to $50,000 in funding annually for two years.  With this funding:

• Todd Astor, MD, and Susan Moffatt-Bruce, MD, are studying mechanisms of bronchiolitis obliterans in pediatric and adult lung disease

• Sandeep Soni, MD, and Don Benson, MD, are piloting a study of reduced intensity and KIR-matched allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with in vivo T-cell depletion in relapsed high-risk neuroblastoma

• Chistopher Phiel, PhD, and Ramesh Ganju, PhD, are analyzing the relationship between CTGF and hepatitis C/HIV-mediated liver pathophysiology

• Brady Reynolds, PhD, and Phyllis Pirie, PhD, are examining parents’ behavioral styles and adolescent smoking.

In hope of improving these statistics, members of Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at The Research Institute interact with the larger microbial pathogenesis community at OSU through the Center for Microbial Interface Biology (CMIB). An official academic center of The Ohio State University, the CMIB is led by Lauren Bakaletz, PhD, from The Research Institute and Larry Schlesinger, MD, from OSUMC’s Division of Infectious Diseases. It includes more than sixty local investigators who share and discuss their current research and look for collaboration opportunities and grant submissions. The CMIB is funded by a T32 training grant from the National Institutes of Health.
  [hide]