There is an urgent need for reducing or eliminating many health disparities that affect underserved minority populations. Despite important advances in knowledge about the basic mechanisms of disease, translation of this knowledge to treatment and prevention of disease has been limited and slow, in particular for these underserved ethnic and racial minorities. The Puerto Rico Clinical and Translational Research Consortium (PRCTRC) will be established as the concept that will advance this translation of knowledge and have an impact on these disparities. It will be a centralized clinical and translational research program focused on health problems prevalent in an underserved minority population and establishing a multidisciplinary and collaborative effort between three major academic health care institutions in Puerto Rico: the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, Universidad Central del Caribe and Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The major programmatic goals of this initiative are to enhance and integrate existing infrastructure for clinical and translational research to support and expand Clinical and Translational Research in the Health Disparities; to enhance and support existing training and mentoring programs to increase the number of new minority investigators in Clinical and Translational Research, and to facilitate the translation of knowledge from the bench into the community.

To accomplish these goals we will integrate, expand and enhance a series of key translational research and training components, including participant and clinical interaction resources; clinical and translational research core resources in biostatistics and data management; core laboratories and technologies; training and career development programs; support for regulatory compliance resources; informatics resources, and community interactions and participation programs. The proposed program will be integrative, incorporating resources and leadership from all three institutions under a single administrative structure. It will also be be inclusive, incorporating leadership from all participating institutions at several levels of administrative responsibility. The program will provide a unique opportunity to incorporate resources and have an impact across a state-size territory composed primarily of a minority population.

This portal is designed to facilitate access to Consortium resources to researchers and the general public. A short video with an overview of the project is available at the Medical Sciences Campus RCMI YouTube Channel.
 

The project is supported by grant U54 RR 026139-01A1 (RCMI Clinical and Translational Research award, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus) from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NCRR or NIH.

The Puerto Rico Clinical and Translational Research Consortium is a collaborative project of the the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, Universidad Central del Caribe and Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences.