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December 2025, Issue 2 | CTSC Newsletter
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As 2025 draws to a close, the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Northern Ohio reflects on a year marked by significant personnel expansion, impactful research breakthroughs, and strengthened collaboration across our partner institutions.
Supported by the CTSA grant program, we are proud of the strides we have made in advancing clinical and translational science (CTS) over the past 18 years. Our progress continues to center on nurturing innovation, streamlining research processes, and strengthening community engagement.
Warm wishes for a happy holiday season and a successful New Year,
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Growing Our Administrative and Scientific Support Team
This past year brought enthusiastic new staff members passionate about our mission, enhancing the supportive infrastructure critical to the CTSC’s success. We celebrated the promotion of Jeri Jewett-Tennant, MPH, MCHES, who stepped into the role of Deputy Director of the CTSC, assisting in strategic leadership and administrative management across CTSC activities.
We welcomed several key personnel to the CTSC Administrative Hub:
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Rini Ghosh, MPP, joined as Assistant Director of Health Research Outcomes and Engagement, focusing on engaging community members and organizations as authentic partners in clinical and translational research.
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Roberto Alers-Velazquez, PhD, joined as Senior Scientific Editor, bringing expertise in NIH proposal and manuscript writing.
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Anna Thornton-Matos, MPH, joined as the Clinical & Translational Research Pilot Navigator, leading the administration of our pilot funding programs.
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Gina Ventre serves as the Assistant Director of Research Concierge Services, assisting CTSC investigators in finding collaborations and matching them to services to support their research.
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2025 Key Achievements and Research Highlights
The CTSC demonstrated its commitment to scientific excellence and community connection through several high-impact initiatives and research acknowledgments:
Institutional Recognition and Leadership:
- Dr. Grace McComsey, Principal Investigator of the CTSC of Northern Ohio, was appointed to the prestigious Gertrude Chandler Tucker Professorship in the Prevention and Treatment of Diseases of Children.
- The CTSC was honored with the CWRU "Office / Department Rising Star" award for its dedication to fostering a supportive campus environment.
- We proudly announced that the CTSC was awarded all available Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) companion training grants, including the K12, R25, and both T32 Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Training Grants, representing a major investment in training the next generation of scientists.
Impactful Research and Informatics:
- Dr. Umut Gurkan, CTSC Pilot Module Lead, received the 2025 ACTS Distinguished Investigator Award for his groundbreaking work developing Gazelle, a portable diagnostic tool for sickle cell disease screening in low-resource settings.
- Dr. Keith McCrae was recognized with a 2025 Top Ten Clinical Research Forum Achievement Award for his study on "Pomalidomide for Bleeding in Patients with Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia".
- The Second Annual Epic Cosmos Datathon was successfully hosted in October 2025, bringing together teams from six partner institutions to accelerate data-driven research using the Epic Cosmos platform.
- Dr. David Kaelber's research, supported by the CTSC, linked semaglutide to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s-related dementias in patients with type 2 diabetes.
- The University of Toledo officially launched TriNetX in August 2025, expanding clinical research capabilities for their faculty and trainees.
Engaging Our Community and Future Workforce:
- The first-ever CTSC Research Discovery Day in March welcomed 247 attendees, including students from 20 local high schools, to explore translational research projects and career paths.
- We celebrated the first graduates of the Community Engaged Research (CER) Mentoring Program in June, the only program in Northeast Ohio focused exclusively on CER.
- The CTSC celebrated its 18th birthday during Translational Science Week in September, focusing on the theme "Safety in Clinical Research" and culminating in the announcement of the 2026 Rural Health Themed Pilot RFA.
- The CTSC also celebrated the first 'Recognition and Achievement' awards during Translational Science Week. The CTSC presented four special awards honoring outstanding contributions, collaboration, and impact across our community. Congratulations to our 2025 Achievement and Recognition Award winners:
- Citation Excellence Award: David Kaelber, Lindsey Wang, & Rong Xu
- Most Citations by Clinical Articles Award: Sudha Iyengar
- SPARC Super User Award: Susan De Luca
- CTSC Collaborative Spirit Award: Rachel Pope
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Looking Ahead to 2026
The coming year is focused on translating research into real-world health solutions, with a strong emphasis on community support and funding innovative projects:
Focus on Rural Health and Stories of Impact:
- The 2026 Themed Pilot Funding Opportunity is focused on "Timely Access to Innovations in Health Outcomes for Rural Ohio," offering up to four awards up to $50,000 each. These awards aim to support feasibility studies and interventions designed to translate and scale evidence-based interventions in rural communities.
- We have launched our Stories of Impact video series highlighting several CTSC-supported investigators and how their work impacts populations in Northern Ohio and beyond.
- Season 2 of our podcast From Research to Real Life debuted featuring two investigators at different stages of their career discussing critical topics affecting researchers today.
Major Funding and Training Programs:
- We are launching the inaugural Embedded Scholars Program, which supports faculty development in community-engaged research by providing funding for the academic lead and a stipend for the community partner.
- The 2026 Annual Pilot Award Program received 21 applications, offering up to eight awards of $50,000 each for collaborative projects addressing areas like AI, rural health, and multi-center studies.
- ATLAS, a prestigious leadership development program for associate and full professors interested in team science and cross-institutional collaboration, will launch its 3rd year with sessions scheduled throughout 2026.
- Our K12 Career Development Program for Clinician Investigators and the T32 Postdoctoral Training Program welcomed seven K12 scholars and two new T32 postdocs affiliated with multiple CTSC partners. Their projects showcasing the latest clinical and translational research will be fully underway in 2026.
New Services and Collaborations:
- The CTSC is actively seeking Community Reviewers for the upcoming Pilot Award cycles to ensure community input shapes impactful research.
- On May 20, 2026, we will host the CTSC Insight Summit focusing on "Artificial Intelligence & Health Outcomes".
- Resource Utilization Studios are dynamic, customized, virtual roundtables of expert investigators and administrators who come together to help individual PIs problem solve, plan, and leverage CTSC-wide resources to find pragmatic solutions for study recruitment, grant proposals, or study design.
- Lastly, we’re working on a new and insightful way to track your way through the CTSC… we look forward to ‘traveling’ with you in 2026!
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Mind and Body Interventions to Restore Whole Person Health via Emotional Well-Being Mechanisms (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Required): Supports investigator-initiated, multidisciplinary clinical trials on how mind and body practices (e.g., mindfulness, yoga, acupuncture, massage) affect innovative emotional well-being (EWB) mechanisms and whole person health (WPH). This phased 5-year grant (up to $475,000 direct costs/year; 2 years R61 feasibility, 3 years R33 trial) targets projects with strong preliminary data, focusing on randomized mechanistic studies with EWB mechanisms as the primary outcome and WPH Index as secondary.
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CTSC Quarterly Big Data Webinar:
TriNetX Database Advanced
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CTSC Distinguished Speaker Series:
'Successful Advocacy in Dynamic Times'
Speaker: Dane Christiansen, MBA
*CME Available
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CTSC Scientific Writing Open Office Hours
Speaker: Roberto Alers-Velazquez, PhD
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CTSC Science Cafe:
Environmental Health
Speaker: Bridget Hegarty, PhD
| | Save the Date: Coming in 2026 | | | | |
International Network on Health and Hepatitis
in Substance Users
Hepatitis C Intervention Symposium
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ACTS Membership for Community Members
CTSC community partners are eligible to become members of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS). Community members are able to access ACTS' member benefits, including:
- Discounted registration to the annual Translational Science meeting
- Opportunities to participate in Special Interest Groups and Committees
- Access to the ACTS community platform website, Tradewing
- And more!
To join, community members can create an account on the ACTS website and join under Case Western Reserve University.
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