Dear CCTSI Community,

It’s been more than six months since the pandemic upended the way we live and work. Most of us are still working remotely but I am happy to report that through our phased introduction of clinical research being conducted in our CTRCs, nearly all investigators who want to have their research restart back on campus, now have the opportunity to do so. 

The CCTSI hosted its first Virtual CU-CSU Summit last month. The topic was COVID-19 and the Colorado Research Environment. The conference was a great success with over 180 attendees. Unfortunately technical difficulties compromised the poster session at the Summit and we apologize to those poster presenters. I want to thank our keynote speakers Drs. Mary Marovich, Jon Samet and Tom Flaig. Indeed, all of our speakers contributed to a fascinating and diverse set of sessions—and I am grateful for everyone who presented. You can find the recordings of the sessions on our CU-CSU Summit web page. 

Opportunities to participate in COVID-19 research on a national level continue to evolve quickly. The best example of this is the NCATS-sponsored National COVID Cohort Collaborative, or N3C, which is being led in part by our own Director of Informatics Dr. Tell Bennett. Learn more about the initiative here.  

Some of our key CCTSI leaders are taking on new roles within our institute and across campus. Dr. Thomas Campbell has been named Associate Dean for adult health research for the CU School of Medicine and Chief Clinical Research Officer for UC Health. Within the CCTSI, Dr. Campbell has played essential roles as the Medical Director for the Adult Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) and as Director of Pilot Grant programs. In his new role, Dr. Campbell will be responsible for assuring an efficient and effective research environment while ensuring compliance with federal and state regulatory requirements. The position is expected to create the infrastructure, processes, informatics and analytics to assure that UCHealth and the University of Colorado are leaders among academic health systems from the perspective of investigators as well as sponsors. 

To make time for Tom’s important new role, Dr. Natalie Serkova will take over from Dr. Campbell as Director of Pilot Grant programs. In addition, the CCTSI is currently conducting a search for an Associate Medical Director for its Adult CTRC, while Dr. Campbell will remain the Medical Director.

Dr. Serkova is currently a tenured Professor in the Department of Radiology, with secondary faculty appointments in Radiation Oncology and Anesthesiology in the School of Medicine. Since 2017, she has overseen the CCTSI Translational Method Pilot Grant Program. Her research interests are in the development of new imaging probes and acquisition protocols for oncology/neuro-oncology, using state-of-the-art preclinical scanners (9.4 Tesla MRI, PET/CT, optical and CT scanners).

Congratulations to Tom and Natalie! We are grateful for all you have accomplished for the CCTSI already, and look forward to continuing to work together on behalf of our biomedical research community.
All the best, 
Ron