Boston University's Clinical & Translational Science Institute has been awarded a $41 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, money that will fund the institute's work turning laboratory research into new treatments and healthcare technologies over the next seven years. The grant comes from NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, known as NCATS, and will support research resources, training and mentoring programs, access to core facilities and data sources, and community engagement efforts across the institute's network.
According to Boston University, the award is part of NCATS' Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program and will be accompanied by a separate research training grant for predoctoral students. As Pulse 2.0 reported, the funding is designed to accelerate research from early discovery through clinical application, connecting scientists, engineers, clinicians, patients and community partners under one umbrella.
Founded in 2008, the institute is a partnership between Boston University and the Boston Medical Center Health System, as noted by Boston University (The Brink). Under the new award, the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, described as a longtime collaborator, will join the institute's leadership for the first time, the university's report notes.
A Track Record Built Over Nearly Two Decades
The institute's work has already produced more than 1,700 publications and at least 20 patents stemming from CTSI-backed projects, Boston University (The Brink) reported. Its 24 affinity research collaboratives have helped spark close to $300 million in outside funding, and projects tied to the institute have informed more than 500 policy documents and clinical guidelines from 45 countries and intergovernmental organizations.
Institute programs have supported research spanning individualized medicine, infectious disease, stroke recovery, overdose prevention and regenerative medicine, per the same account. The institute can also connect researchers with data from some of the nation's largest health investigations, including the BU-led Framingham Heart Study, the report notes.
Leadership Points to Education and Patient Impact
David Center, the institute's founding principal investigator and Boston University's associate provost for translational research, framed the award around the institute's dual mission of training scientists and delivering results for patients. “Our vision is to bring new discoveries to the communities that we serve, patients, scientists, and students,” Center said. “We're really looking to be, and have been, an institute that starts with educating and ends with products that help improve individuals' health and cure disease.”
The new funding will also support the launch of workforce development programs, team science activities such as research jams, and closer collaborations with the university's artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and data science experts, according to the university's announcement.
How This Award Compares to Past Funding
The institute's funding history includes a $38.3 million renewal in 2020 that was also issued by NCATS and was intended to support the institute for five years. By that point, the institute had received more than $115 million in NCATS funding to date and had helped generate almost $50 million in additional funding opportunities since its 2008 founding, according to Boston University (The Brink).
BU's new award arrives alongside a similar grant awarded to Penn State's Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which recently received a seven-year, $28.2 million grant from NCATS, according to Penn State Health News. That award is aimed at developing scalable models for rural health challenges and translating medical discoveries into real-world treatments. Penn State's institute has supported more than 150 pilot research projects over five years, generating more than $254 million in follow-on funding, and its statewide clinical network spans 32 hospitals and more than 1,100 clinics and health centers serving over 5 million patients, per the same report.
More than 60 leading medical institutions across the nation currently receive funding through NCATS' CTSA Program, according to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, placing Boston University's new award within a broader national effort to move scientific findings more quickly from the lab into clinical use.
