Center For Clinical And Translational Sciences

The Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), a collaboration among The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, celebrated the grand opening of its new 16,721 square-foot offices in The University of Texas Professional Building on April 11.
Senior administrators from three Texas Medical Center institutions cut the ribbon on the new offices for Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) in The University of Texas Professional Building. Pictured from left to right are: Dan Wolterman, President and CEO, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System; Frank Arnett Jr., M.D., Executive Director of the CCTS; John Mendelsohn, M.D., President, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; and James T. Willerson, M.D., President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and President-Elect, Texas Heart Institute.

Senior administrators from three Texas Medical Center institutions cut the ribbon on the new offices for The Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) in the University of Texas Professional Building. Pictured from left to right are: Dan Wolterman, President and CEO, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System; Frank Arnett Jr., M.D., Executive Director of the CCTS; John Mendelsohn, M.D., President, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; and James T. Willerson, M.D., President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and President-Elect, Texas Heart Institute.

The CCTS is one of the original 12 such centers funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) in 2006 and provides the resources and advice to move scientific findings into clinical practice faster, to the benefit of patients, their families, and the community. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center also received CTSA funding in 2007 for a translational sciences center.

“We are now truly on our way to revolutionizing health care,” said James T. Willerson, M.D., President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and President-Elect of Texas Heart Institute. “One young researcher observed of CCTS, ‘It helped me shave years off my work.’”

The CCTS staff helps investigators with the design and conduct of clinical trials and other research studies and includes biostatisticians, epidemiologists, ethicists, clinical trials managers, bioinformaticists, educators, and other research specialists. “It’s one-stop shopping. You can come up here and meet with all those different people and speed your application along,” said Frank Arnett Jr., M.D., Executive Director of the CCTS, Professor of Internal Medicine and the Elizabeth Bidgood Chair in Rheumatology at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

“When you take three exemplary institutions and focus on a vision, you can do outstanding things,” said Dan Wolterman, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. “Memorial Hermann is exceptionally proud to be in this collaborative partnership.”

“There are 125 medical schools in the country, and every one of them wants a center like this,” said John Mendelsohn, M.D., President of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We are delighted to be partnering with the UT Health Science Center in this important research and educational center, and we are proud to bring to it the nation’s largest and most successful cancer clinical trials program.”

Razelle Kurzrock, M.D., Co-Director of the CCTS for Education and Training and Professor and Chair of M. D. Anderson’s Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, said, “The CCTS is a massive undertaking that is building on the foundation of a number of important pre-existing educational and clinical research programs at M. D. Anderson and is making rapid strides in bridging research across the entire University of Texas Health Science Center.”

The CCTS offices are on the 11th floor of the UT Professional Building at 6410 Fannin, and the phone number is 713-500-7924. More information is online at http://ccts.uth.tmc.edu