Category: Success Stories

Humans evolved in a relatively quiet landscape, without natural selection for protection from acoustic trauma. In today’s increasingly loud industrialized world, exposure to noise affects us all, and life is only getting louder. According to findings from the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), nearly one in four of US adults aged 20-69 years […]

Doug Lindsay describes the battle with his own rare disease. Now, he advocates for others. With over a decade spent trying to understand the rare disease that kept him bedridden for most of his 20s, Doug Lindsay learned to become his own advocate. For years he dedicated himself to investigating his symptoms and seeking help […]

The Washington University Pediatric and Adolescent Research Consortium (WU PAARC), a practice-based research network of community pediatric healthcare providers, has been an integral part of the ICTS since the inception of the CTSA program at Washington University in 2007. As a core of the ICTS and a part of the Integrating Special Populations function, WU […]

The CTSA program was developed to accelerate new treatments from the lab to patients, enabled to a large extent by patients participating in and benefiting from clinical trials. Clinical trials provide that needed bridge from human subjects to hypotheses to treatments that can directly benefit human health. And, never has this connection been more critical […]

Challenge of measuring impact Government, non-profits, and organizations fund research with the ultimate goal of improving health and society. Yet measuring these long-term outcomes can be challenging, and research impact has traditionally been tied to quantitative productivity, like bibliometrics and grant funding, and not necessarily the broader impacts of research. For years, researchers lacked a […]

As it turns out, they will. A team of researchers that has been evaluating the Washington University Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) since 2010 has released new findings. They suggest that CTSA member researchers who engaged with dedicated ICTS infrastructure and resources increased their research productivity; members who took advantage of ICTS services […]

A Relationship Begins One could say she has community in her heart. Rev. Dr. Paulette Sankofa, EdD, grew up in the St. Louis West End and remembers the tight community connections, particularly among older adults that was commonplace at that time. It is this sense of community and respect for seniors instilled as a young […]

Neuropathic pain affects millions of Americans every year. This fact combined with the nationwide crisis of opioid misuse reinforces the need for safer and more effective therapies to help those suffering from chronic pain. In tandem with efforts from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and in an effort to advance research in this […]

The proverbial saying ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ is frequently used to explain how great innovations are made during times of urgent need. Never has the need been direr than when the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020 and health care providers were struggling to find treatments for patients fighting this new and deadly […]