April 2024
Issue 1
Letter From the President
Dear colleagues,
I am excited to succeed Dr. Linda Cottler as the next president of the Association. Under Dr. Cottler’s leadership, ACTS has continued on a growth trajectory of increasing membership, enhancing the impact of the ACTS Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and advancing advocacy for Clinical and Translational Research. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to her volunteerism, commitment to the organization and passion for advancing community engagement.
The ACTS meeting last week in Las Vegas was a tremendous success! Last count, we had some 1,228 total registrants attending from CTSA hubs across the consortium. We owe much gratitude to Joyce Balls-Berry and Jareen Meinzen-Derr and the ACTS Planning Committee for their work in organizing the annual meeting. The halls were filled with excitement and tremendous opportunities for networking. Thanks also to Kim Wiatr, Sam Coman and the ACTS staff for the great work in managing the meeting so expertly. The ACTS has built substantial momentum by engaging all members of the translational research workforce.
Last year we welcomed two new SIGs, the Informatics and Team Science Professionals to the ACTS portfolio. The Informatics SIG seeks to network and share best practices to integrate informatics into clinical and translational science research programs. The Team Science Professionals SIG seeks to provide a career trajectory for those translational scientists, educators and scholars who provide team science training and interventions across the CTSA Hubs.
Participation in the SIGs is voluntary and free for those with institutional CTSA membership; if you are interested in participating in these SIGs or the others, you can join at https://www.actscience.org/About/Special-Interest-Groups .
We welcome your participation.
Translational Science 2024 In Review
Translational Science 2024 was one to remember! We heard from over 150 speakers representing the very best of our field, hung up over 560 posters showcasing groundbreaking research, and set a new Translational Science in-person attendance record with over 1,200 of you making the trip. Last week also marked our association's first time meeting on the west coast, and ACTS would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the city of Las Vegas and the staff at the Paris Hotel for being such gracious hosts.
Whether this was your first or tenth Translational Science meeting, we'd like to thank everyone who joined us for this event, which will forever be looked back on as a milestone in ACTS history. Don't forget to complete your post event survey, which was emailed to all registered attendees at the conclusion of the meeting, and be sure to mark your calendar for our return to Washington, DC from April 15th to April 17th, 2025!
Welcoming the New ACTS Board of Directors
Please join us in welcoming R. Lane Coffee, PhD, MS, Peter Elkin, MD, and Shari Messinger, ME, PhD to the ACTS Board of Directors! We are excited to have their expertise and passion on our board and look forward to seeing how their fresh perspectives will help our association continue to grow. We also congratulate Allan Brasier, MD as he steps into his new role as ACTS President, with a heartfelt thank you to Linda Cottler, PhD, MPH, FACE as she ends her term as President.
We also extend our thanks to John Buse, MD, PhD who just finished his last term with the Board of Directors. We are grateful for the dedication and expertise he has provided to the board and ACTS as a whole over the past three years.
Congratulating our 2024 ACTS Award Recipients
As part of last weeks festivities in Las Vegas, we celebrated the recipients of the 2024 ACTS Awards. These awards recognize the outstanding investigators, educators, and trainees in translational research. Please join us in congratulating this years eleven recipients for their contributions to our field!
You can learn more about this years winners on our website, as well as look back on winners from previous years. Know someone who deserves recognition for their work? Nominations for the 2025 ACTS Awards will be opening later this fall!
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
RocHealthData Breaks Down Research Barriers and Informs Public Health Efforts
Health researchers and public officials need reliable and timely datasets to make informed decisions about research and policy, but this information can be hard to come by. RocHealthData, a platform developed by researchers at the University of Rochester in partnership with the University of Missouri Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems (CARES), addresses this need by making thousands of national datasets freely available.