Michael Kurilla: Okay? Well, welcome everyone.
Michael Kurilla: We've got a we've got an action packed agenda today, and
Michael Kurilla: we've we've stranded Ted somewhere between Oregon and California.
Ted Wun: I am in Ashland, Oregon, where there's snow on the ground. Unusually so. But yeah.
Michael Kurilla: That's quite an odd occurrence for a Californian, I guess.
Michael Kurilla: So let's get, let's get right into the meat of the discussion, and
Michael Kurilla: cause we we do have a number of things. So there's not much I can say at this point. I'm sure everyone has a lot of questions. But like you, we are awaiting further guidance, and we'll relate it when when we find out.
Michael Kurilla: So let's move on. Unless Ted has something specially.
Ted Wun: I have nothing to add to that. I think. That we discussed last week. So thank you.
Michael Kurilla: All right.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Okay. Next on the agenda is our report out. I'm just going to admit our guests. We have Miriam Berdella, Stephen Ash, and Susan Pusick with us
Cindy Mark, CCOS: from the integrating Cts into the Ctsa Virtual Visiting Scholar working group, Miriam, welcome and take it away.
Miriam Bredella: Great someone is gonna run the slides for me, or do you want me to share mine? They're a little animated. So.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: It's totally up to you. I can. I'm happy to let you share your screen.
Miriam Bredella: Why don't I share my screen? So I don't have to constantly say, Click,
Cindy Mark, CCOS: All yours.
Miriam Bredella: Thank you. Nice to see everyone nice.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: To see you too.
Miriam Bredella: Okay.
Miriam Bredella: see?
Miriam Bredella: Can you all see my screen, which should look exactly the same like Cindy just showed it'd be perfect. Thank you.
Miriam Bredella: Perfect great to be here.
Michael Kurilla: Miriam.
Ted Wun: That's odd.
Miriam Bredella: So.
Miriam Bredella: So I'm going to talk about the Cts visiting Scholar program. First, st it was established in 2020 in response to the covid-nineteen pandemic. We have talked about this before. So I just briefly summarize. It was really to give the opportunity for Kl. 2 scholars to serve as a virtual visiting professor at a participating hub. They present the Ctsa visiting scholar lecture. There's room for networking and mentorship exchange of ideas, and we really hope, more collaboration beyond the initial visit.
Miriam Bredella: We made these lectures and seminars available to the entire Ctsa community. So to give the scholars more national visibility and also foster collaboration across our Ctsa hubs.
Miriam Bredella: Then, with ncats focused on clinical translational science or Cts. In 2022, we established a new working group, the integrating Cts into the Ctsa Virtual Visiting Scholar Program Working Group. That's a mouthful.
Miriam Bredella: And the difference was that the scholars were really instructed to give a 40 min presentation about their work, but also talk, have a 20 min discussion highlighting areas where their work reflects Cts and also discuss roadblocks to Cts that they have experienced.
Miriam Bredella: So I'm just going to report on the surveys. We did so. The 1st cycle started in 2023. In January 25 scholars participated in 17 hubs.
Miriam Bredella: We did an immediate post-visit scholar survey, which a very good response rate of 92%. You can see the demographics here.
Miriam Bredella: and 91% of the scholars agreed, or strongly agreed, that giving a formal presentation or talk was valuable to them. The conversations they had with others at the Host institution were valuable to advancing their research and their professional development, and they had met at least one person they're likely to contact again in the future, and they would recommend the program to other Kl, 2 or K 12 scholars.
Miriam Bredella: So then we also did a 6 month follow up visit. The response rate was slightly lower, 72%. But what I want to highlight is this, more than half of the scholars actually had a follow up conversation with an individual that they met during the visits. The perceived benefits were networking collaboration, recognition, improvement to research and presentation skills and Cv building.
Miriam Bredella: We did A because this now is focusing on Cts. So we did a survey. How familiar the scholars were with the concept of Cts before the program, and you can see the results in white and before and in blue after. And then we did a score, and the score before was 3.5, and after was 4
Miriam Bredella: point 3. So we achieved our goal. Maybe not. Everyone was very familiar, but they definitely became more familiar with the concept of Cts.
Miriam Bredella: The second cycle started in January 2024, 28 scholars participated and 19 hubs. The response rate of the immediate post visit survey was 75%. You see, the demographic 100% agreed or strongly agreed, that giving a formal presentation was valuable.
Miriam Bredella: that they would recommend the program to other scholars, and 95% agreed or strongly agreed, that conversation they had with others at the Host institution were valuable for advancing their research and their professional development, and 78%
Miriam Bredella: agreed that scholars had met at least one person they're likely to contact contact again in the future. We are
Miriam Bredella: still. We sent out the 6 month survey. We're collecting results as I speak, and here we also did the familiarity of the concept of Cts before and after, and it was very similar before the program. The scholars were 3.5 per 1 million that increased to 4.2.
Miriam Bredella: Hear us that. So then we also had a free text form of the scholars after the visit.
Miriam Bredella: and we asked them what they really liked. So what they appreciated were networking opportunities, mentoring career advice, giving a formal talk and presenting their work to non-experts, areas for improvement, more structure for the visit components. That was some diverse experiences among the hub, increasing participation in and attendance of scholars, grand rounds, and more help for the scholar to connect with collabor
Miriam Bredella: at the host Hub, and setting up the visit. Here are some comments of a scholar. I really appreciated the opportunity to virtually visit another Ctsa and share my research findings. It was a wonderful experience to meet with. Other researchers. Learn about how Ctsas work in other universities, and learn about additional opportunities.
Miriam Bredella: Another scholar mentioned for me the most useful aspect of the visit, where the opportunity to present my preliminary Kl. 2 results, and to showcase my findings from a translational perspective. I also had the chance to meet someone in my field whom I hadn't previously had the opportunity to meet, as well as to connect with other junior faculty from the visiting institution, and one more, the whole experience was very useful to me. Number one
Miriam Bredella: formal talk allowed me to present my science to folks interested in the topic number 2, the one on one meeting facilitated scientific discussions and helped to build connections so that I could expand my network and number 3 for junior investigator. This is a great, this is great for professional growth and developing communication skills.
Miriam Bredella: So this is from the scholar side. But of course, we also evaluated the hubs. So the 1st hub visit, you see the response rate, it's pretty good, and the 186% strongly
Miriam Bredella: agreed or strongly agreed, that the program was valuable to their institution and valuable to their scholars. 71% and faculty meeting with us scholars had a positive experience. 79%. I would recommend the scholar. The program to
Miriam Bredella: to other institutions was 93%, and for the second cycle the Hub survey is on the right. The response rate was slightly worse. 68% and only 64% found that it was valuable to their institution. But for their scholars it was 73%, and faculty meeting with a scholar had a positive experience, 70%, and they would recommend it to other institutions and 92%.
Miriam Bredella: Here are some host
Miriam Bredella: visit comments from the hubs. So they like the opportunity to learn about different programs and ways to incorporate translational science into their research and areas for improvement included. Better coordination of the visit schedule can be challenging. I think this was something that was seen on both sides. They wanted more initiative from the scholars and setting up visits. The scholar wanted more help from the hubs, and having scholars provide more than one department they would like to meet with.
Miriam Bredella: So here are just some comments from Hub
Miriam Bredella: participants. It's great to be able to share the work of other. Kl, 2 s. At our institution, we've seen a lot of interdisciplinary research topics. So we are able to involve multiple research groups to attend the presentation and meet with visiting Kl. 2 S. Faculty investigators who agree to meet have good things to say about the quality of the visiting scholars as well as interest in the research topic
Miriam Bredella: always been a good experience. The visiting scholars are always wonderful to work with. Let's keep working on how the translational science skills are reflected in scholar work for those programs that have converted to K. 12.
Miriam Bredella: And another person said, great program. This should be a regular part of the Kl 2 K 12 programs program. So the next steps we are actively receiving results from the 6 month follow up survey. We will write a second manuscript. The 1st one was published 2 years ago, and then the big question is which I think I and every time I present to this group. How can we make this program? A permanent part of the Kl. 2 K. 12 program before I
Miriam Bredella: open it for discussion? I would love like to thank my leaders of the group here Susan and Stephen and Joel, and also Suzanne and Kathleen, Jessica, Patrick, and especially Cindy Mark here, who has been instrumental in keeping us together and scheduling the meeting and telling us what to do. So thank you all so much also to this group for listening, and
Miriam Bredella: I would love to hear some questions or ideas. How we could make this a permanent part of the program.
Michael Kurilla: Great. Thank you.
Michael Kurilla: Questions.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah.
Ted Wun: Comments.
Miriam Bredella: Is that a hand or no? No, actually, this is this is my my! This was my.
Ted Wun: That's right.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Ted Wun: Somebody. Cindy might have to see the hands. I can't see you, but.
Miriam Bredella: Oh, no, there is no, I don't think there is.
Michael Kurilla: Steve is raising his real hand.
Steven Reis: Yeah, I haven't.
Miriam Bredella: Someone is raising a real hand. Steven.
Steven Reis: Yeah, it's not recognizing my hand. But this is a very impressive program. It seems very valuable for the scholars. I'm particularly impressed with the with the rate of follow up conversations ranging from like 58 to 70, something percent that seems very valuable. I was wondering how difficult the logistics were. I mean you had a tremendous number of scholars. If I heard correctly.
Arleen Brown: Has chronic kidney disease.
Steven Reis: So, if we.
Arleen Brown: Mentioned is food, insecurity.
Michael Kurilla: Arlene, can you? Can you mute? Thank you.
Steven Reis: So. So if we scale that up to 2 thirds of all of the Ctsa institutions, what would it take logistically to coordinate all of that.
Steven Reis: because it seems like it would be a very valuable experience across all the institutions.
Miriam Bredella: Yeah, we, we always ask people who want to participate, not everyone does. So we send out the survey, and this is the number
Miriam Bredella: participate every year, and it's ranged from I don't know. 28 to the beginning. We had maybe 30, 40 the highest, but the logistics, I think Cindy and and I don't know. Is Joel here? I yeah, Joel, is there? So Joel's assistant, Suzanne Schmidt did a lot of the work, and and then Cindy, mark. So, Joel, do you want to talk about the hours that Suzanne spent on that.
Joel Tsevat: I think Suzanne's actually on the meeting, too.
Miriam Bredella: Oh, she is here!
Joel Tsevat: She's our evaluator, one of our evaluators for Ctsa. And she did an incredible job. You there.
Miriam Bredella: Oh, there she is! Yeah, I see her. Hey, Suzanne, so speak. Tell us how cumbersome that was.
Susanne Schmidt: The logistics are a little bit tricky, right? Because you have. You reach out to the hubs first, st and then you wait for them to say, yes, I want to be part of this, and then you reach out to the scholars and you ask them. Your hub wants you to participate. Now go ahead and fill this out, and then we do the matching, and the matching takes a couple of hours.
Susanne Schmidt: maybe 3, and then we sit down as a team, and we try to. We hammer out the easy matches first, st and then the harder ones where we can't match the the preferred hub with the scholar. So all in all, all of the logistics.
Susanne Schmidt: it's really hard to say.
Susanne Schmidt: But in the like December, January.
Susanne Schmidt: that area that you come probably to like 10 HA week, just for logistics.
Susanne Schmidt: And then the actual matching happens. And Cindy did a great job reaching out to everybody. And there's a lot of follow up because they need to have the Cv send, and then all the matching happens on the the back end. Each of the hubs.
Michael Kurilla: And
Joel Tsevat: All the supervis.
Michael Kurilla: How, how, Joel or anyone? How how many of these are you doing on an annual basis?
Miriam Bredella: 1 1 per year.
steven asch: What do you mean? How many total scholars? Maybe you could clarify your question.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah, yeah.
Michael Kurilla: I mean the the matching that's going on, is it? Just for one visiting scholar.
steven asch: There's a.
Miriam Bredella: No.
steven asch: Suzanne. That's like 50. How much is it again? Sorry I don't have the number at the top of my head.
Miriam Bredella: They're like 28 or so 30 scholars. So we do the matching. And like one matching session where we match them all. So that's like, it's like the Residency match. They put their number one and 3, and then, we see, do they have availability? There are always some institution where more scholars want to go, but then they say we only take 4, and then we see well who are the first.st
Michael Kurilla: 1st we give them their 1st choice, and then we go second and 3rd and okay.
Michael Kurilla: But how many.
steven asch: And I'll see you.
Michael Kurilla: How many events are being hosted on an annual basis.
steven asch: It's what it's a 1.
Miriam Bredella: 98.
Michael Kurilla: One event, but with multiple scholars is what you're saying.
steven asch: No.
Miriam Bredella: No. No. 28 events. So if they 28.
Michael Kurilla: 28 events.
Michael Kurilla: Okay? So roughly, 2 a month is what is what you're doing.
steven asch: Yes, and actually some of the sites have them do more than one thing, so that in our site, for instance, they meet with. They give a talk.
steven asch: and then that's in addition to their national talk. And of course they meet with their mentors that we assign them at our site the visiting scholars. So there's a little bit of difference across the sites, but not not that much. I want to emphasize something that you said Miriam. If we were to maintain this as part of the overall and continuing effort, I don't think the logistics would be any worse than they already are because we're essentially offering it to everybody. Now, not all sites.
Miriam Bredella: Yes.
steven asch: Participate in it.
Michael Kurilla: Ted. I see a good.
Ted Wun: What's what's the just again Cindy? Cut us off when we're what is the
Ted Wun: what's the basis for? The choices? Are our scholars and our hubs stating, you know. Is it a place the scholars might want to end up looking for a faculty position, or just they know that there's somebody in their area just kind of curious as to why.
Miriam Bredella: We actually, we make it they have to put a little bit of effort into it. And then it's not just a little. So we ask them if they want to go to a certain institution, why, and then identify 3 people that they would like to meet, and and why, so? It's often it's really an investigator. They wanted to work or wanted to have the opportunity to meet with.
Ted Wun: Okay, great. And is there an attempt? And I'll stop again whenever you want me, Cindy. But an attempt, because all the K 12 programs. And the, you know, typically have works in progress every quarter or every other month, or something, or actually every month where we are, was there an attempt to kind of integrate into those at the individual homes, because I I would think that from a logistical standpoint it might be easier to do that I'm just trying to think of a pragmatic
Ted Wun: way to continue this without, you know, making it too much of a burden on, on coordinating staff.
Miriam Bredella: That's what we did at Harvard. We just had them present as part of the monthly or weekly meetings.
Miriam Bredella: Go ahead. It's really every hub might do it differently.
steven asch: Sorry Mary did not mean to interrupt you.
Miriam Bredella: No, no, say say what you did at Stanford. I'm curious.
steven asch: So it's Stanford. We did both right. So we do a national presentation, and they presented at the works works in progress. Some did one or the other, so there was some variation.
Susan Pusek- UNC: So the other thing I did at Unc was I did follow this, the pattern of having them interact with at our existing K. 12 seminar, but I also tried to
Susan Pusek- UNC: place one of the scholars talks within maybe a research institute that made sense for their research, and that that was
Susan Pusek- UNC: challenging, scheduling, wise, but it worked out really, really well, because it it really kind of amplified what the K. 12 is from the Ctsa. Why, it's different, maybe, than other training experiences and really kind of got people to recognize what was unique about the program as well as enhance the scientific interactions.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Miriam Bredella: Nice.
Joel Tsevat: We had a slightly different approach in San Antonio, which is.
Joel Tsevat: we want them to be able to present to a general audience right? So, both locally and nationally. So they have to be able to present their work in a way that all of our scholars and our faculty can understand it. So that's a that's an added challenge plus incorporate some kind of translational science component into it.
Michael Kurilla: Okay?
Michael Kurilla: And then I I have to ask, because we get faced with this all the time. It seems like when we do a zoom call like this. Everybody just hops on zoom. And yet for meeting, when we want to have a zoom option all of a sudden cost. Just blow seem to blow the doors off of everything. So was there. Were there technical issues in terms of being able to
Michael Kurilla: take this on? Or is that something that is just well well established within the.
Miriam Bredella: I think that's that's well established. I I have no not heard about anything related to Zoom, because a lot of their meetings are on zoom, and then also the institution. They take a lot of the burden, the scheduling and stuff. It's not all us. So like once we make the match, then it's up to the institution and the scholar, and we get maybe complaints if it doesn't work. But that is all of that is done by the by the institution and the scholar.
Miriam Bredella: They have that taken out.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Ruth OHara: Miriam, this is Ruth.
Miriam Bredella: Hey, Ruth.
Ruth OHara: Hey? Sorry I'm I'm also traveling. So not on video. But do you have a sense of what makes a sites more eager to sign up than others? Or is it just.
Ruth OHara: you know, somewhat random, or have you any thoughts on that.
Miriam Bredella: I think some sites were not aware, so we try to really advertise it in the Kpi meetings, but not every Kpi attends these meetings. And then we have emails that are sent around and not everyone opens their email. So I think it's the hubs that know about it. I think most of them participated.
Ruth OHara: Thanks.
Ruth OHara: That's a million.
Susan Pusek- UNC: I think we also heard from administrators that maybe during times when the site was writing their renewal.
Susan Pusek- UNC: they didn't have capacity or administrative staff to do all this scheduling coordination.
Ruth OHara: Thanks! Fizz.
Michael Kurilla: That's true.
Miriam Bredella: Truly.
Julie Lumeng: Oh, I just wanted to offer that. We are one of the sites that does not participate. And we tried in the beginning, but we had such a hard time finding a venue for them to present in, and.
Miriam Bredella: Okay.
Julie Lumeng: Faculty that they wanted to meet with weren't didn't necessarily have the time, and it was just challenging so, and then they would be disappointed.
Miriam Bredella: It's good good feedback to have. So whatever. Yeah. But I think it is so. Site specific. It's it's hard to say, well, we we can help you with this, because it is like certain faculty, and that changes every time. And I I can see that. So that's a good good piece of information to have.
Michael Kurilla: So I'm I'm wondering, Miriam, would there be an opportunity at either the Spring Acts meeting or the fall annual program meeting to sort of.
Miriam Bredella: Hash out a lot of the.
Michael Kurilla: You know this sort of matchmaking going on? Would that be a convenient opportunity for the community to
Michael Kurilla: get together and.
Miriam Bredella: Sure
Miriam Bredella: I will be there. I don't know why. My Co. Susan, you're nodding your head. Joel and Steve are nodding your heads. Let's let's try to.
steven asch: I plan to be there? Yes.
Miriam Bredella: During the spring meeting, and see what we could do with see cause help, or how to make this a permanent part. It's not rocket science. And it's not that I mean, it's the work is like, as Suzanne said, it's 10 HA week for a certain amount of time, but it's not the whole year.
Miriam Bredella: So, David. Oh, nice to see you.
David Ingbar: Yeah, great presentation. I was just gonna say, thank you for doing this, and we didn't participate in the 1st round. We had one scholar in the second round they came back very enthusiastic, so I think, to some extent, you know, it's a matter of getting the scholars engaged, and they will sell this
David Ingbar: because they see it as beneficial.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Miriam Bredella: Thank you. Doris, original participant of the original cohort.
Doris Rubio: Yeah, we were. We grew this together. And so obviously, I'm a big fan of it. And
Doris Rubio: you know, it's interesting. I was talking with somebody doing a visiting scholars program, and she was saying that she had just
Doris Rubio: gotten back from Cleveland. There was a really, but she was doing grand rounds there. There was a really bad snowstorm. She got caught overnight, and when she came home her 2 year old was so upset because she was delayed by a day, and then she started raving about the visiting scholars program because she felt like she got the exact same experience, if not better, because she didn't have to travel, and her 2 year old wasn't on the floor throwing
Doris Rubio: a temper tantrum because Mom was delayed for another day, due to the weather conditions so, and and she was like, and I didn't have to buy a plane ticket or cost for a hotel or anything. So, and for you know, that was an end of one, but obviously very, very enthusiastic.
Doris Rubio: So I just wanted to say, You know, kudos to the program. I'm glad it's continuing. Not only is it continuing, it's growing and expanding, so we do this as well on the Tl. One t. 32 side of the camp. Well visiting ones, and I had made the recommendation to Nida, has a K. 12, and made the suggestion to one of the pis at Washu, who loved it. And so now they're doing it
Doris Rubio: at the K 12 consortium. So I do think it's a great program, and and would love to see ncats invest in it.
Miriam Bredella: Thank you so much, Doris, for these nice comments. This was not planned. It.
Michael Kurilla: Caribbean.
Michael Kurilla: Well, any other, any other comments or questions for the group?
Michael Kurilla: Okay, thank you, Miriam.
Miriam Bredella: It was nice to see you.
Ted Wun: Thank you very much.
Michael Kurilla: Alright. We're going to turn over the next series of agenda topics to Cindy. Cindy. Take it away, Cindy.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Thank you. Let me just share my screen. Now.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: we're just gonna go over a couple of things. The 1st thing is after today's meeting.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: I will be sending out cancellation notices for all steering committee meetings and then sending out
Cindy Mark, CCOS: invitations for webinars.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: So watch your inbox. Don't be alarmed when you receive a whole mess of cancellations. They're not real cancellations. They're just changes.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: But when you go from a meeting to a webinar you have to set up a new one. So
Cindy Mark, CCOS: that's what we'll be doing.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Next. We're going to talk about the working group process liaison assignments to working groups and new working group proposal topics.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: So the working group report out process to steering committee is this, each working group will provide a excuse me, a 10 min presentation to the steering committee, followed by 10 min of discussion. So we just witnessed that, with Miriam and
Cindy Mark, CCOS: the rest of my friends, prior to
Cindy Mark, CCOS: them, giving their presentation. They're going to send reading materials to which I will be sending to the liaisons which we'll get to in a moment.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: and those liaisons will provide feedback questions,
Cindy Mark, CCOS: suggestions, whatever they have, whatever feedback they have to offer to the working group, and then the working group will fine tune, their presentation, the presentation will be live. It used to be recorded, but now it is live
Cindy Mark, CCOS: as an example for this working group that we just heard from Steve Rice was a liaison, and he provided information which I sent back to the group, and they included that information in their presentation.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: They are asked to provide questions to the steering committee, and we offer a few suggestions. They don't have to use those specifically, it's just a
Cindy Mark, CCOS: an example. Again, 2 steering committee members will be assigned to review the content and lead the discussion.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: I will reach out to the working group chairs to schedule their presentations 2 months in advance.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: and they are to send me their slides a month in advance
Cindy Mark, CCOS: before I go on to the steering committee assignments. Does anyone have any questions about the process.
Ted Wun: Can I just ask a quick question, Cindy, about the Webinar format that it'll still be
Ted Wun: interactive? I I think, when you say Webinar, sometimes there's an opportunity for question and answer. But it's not, you know, like, it's a Zoom Meeting where you can unmute necessarily. But it's still gonna be using a platform where we can have discussion.
Ted Wun: It's just.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: I am not overly familiar yet with webinars, I believe. Question and answers actually have to go into the Q&A area in a webinar, not in the chat. I might be wrong about that, and I will ask Lauren to unmute momentarily, because she does the Ctsa webinar. She may have more information. Lauren.
Lauren Fitzharris: Yes, so anyone with a panelists link can unmute and have a discussion. And so the plan will be for all the steering committee members to have those panelists links. So in addition to a Q&A box, there's
Lauren Fitzharris: also going. You will have the ability to come off mute.
Ted Wun: Alright. Thank you.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Thank you, and I promise I will be more familiar by the time we have one.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: So these are our assignments, our steering committee assignments to working groups.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: I'm going to send.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: When I receive permission to email the group. I will send these to everyone so that you have them. I don't expect you to memorize them, but I do. A month before the steering committee send you the slide deck from the working group.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Excuse me, and you'll be able to review them and be in touch.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: So I'm not going to read through all of them. You'll get them in an email and they will be
Cindy Mark, CCOS: when we are able to post to the website, they'll be on the website for you as well.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: We had a survey to update the working group topics.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: I had several responses which was great. Thank you for that. We are going to keep 2 of the topics national training curricula in Cts and artificial intelligence. And we are going to add 3 more
Cindy Mark, CCOS: career development for clinical and translational research staff team science mentoring dissemination and implementation and social determinants of health.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: We will be removing all of the others, those listed here, and a couple others.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: and that is it for me, unless someone has a question.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Regarding working group report outs.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: If not, I will pass it on to Carrie.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Thanks, everybody.
Kerry James: Thanks, Cindy.
Kerry James: You can go on to the next slide, please.
Kerry James: So we wanted to share the draft agenda for the spring meeting. You can see it here. There's going to be 2 Ec. Meetings
Kerry James: on April 14th in the morning and one in the afternoon. Another meeting will take place on the 15.th
Kerry James: The joint Ec. Lead team meeting is scheduled for the morning of the 16, th and then a Upi meeting is on the 17th with the steering committee in the afternoon.
Kerry James: Planning is obviously still in progress. This meeting is pending all the approvals at the Nih, so we are not able to give any more details and registration has not yet opened
Kerry James: more to come on this.
Kerry James: The Upi meeting that is going to be on April 17, th similar to previous meetings. The purpose is for everybody to be able to engage in conversation with ncats leadership.
Kerry James: and so to organize this meeting again. We have gotten the
Kerry James: approval, or rather Karen, Barry, Bob, and Rachel have all agreed to serve on the planning committee again for this meeting, so we will be having a meeting hopefully in the coming weeks with this small committee, and we will be discussing what topics to cover in the format. I think we did get a lot of feedback from the previous meeting in the fall that the format
Kerry James: was everybody seemed to like the format. We'll probably have a little bit more structure to it. But we're gonna do a similar sort of approach for the next for this upcoming meeting. More to come.
Kerry James: And then, as far as the fall meeting.
Kerry James: this is the save the date. There we are sort of sort of honing in on October 20 second, through the 24th day one will be look much like the last meeting we had in the fall, where 10 the administrators and the steering committee meet on Day one, and then the full program meeting would be on day
Kerry James: 2 and a half day on day 3. And we are also going to have another Upi meeting during the program on day 2 or 3, you know. Obviously none of this. We, our fall planning committee, has not yet started meeting yet, so more to come next slide.
Kerry James: Here are some of the milestones. We are in the early stages of a lot of the logistics planning. We will be talking a little bit in a moment about the fall planning committee and other topics next slide.
Kerry James: And so Grace Mccompsey is going to be leading the fall planning committee this year, and certainly at this point we are very much looking for volunteers to serve on the fall planning committee. We will begin meeting in April. And Cindy, could you go back to the slide before.
Kerry James: Yeah. The fall planning committee typically meets between April and October next slide.
Kerry James: And so if you are interested in volunteering to join the fall planning committee for the 2025 fall meeting. You are welcome to email Mike or Grace at the emails here. And then also please copy Lauren and Cindy. So Ccos is in the loop.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah. And Kerry, how many, how many steering committee members did we have on the planning committee last year? Just to give people an idea of.
Kerry James: Sure sure we had. I believe there were 8, 8 or 9.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah, right? Yeah.
Michael Kurilla: And then and then we we usually will also select, as as it says, there, you know, a K and a and A. T, you know, like to have K. And T. And we like to have some representative by like a K scholar or a T trainee are actually on the planning committee. But we decide that after we sort of have the have the
Michael Kurilla: a committee
Michael Kurilla: roster set and so we usually kick it off at the at the spring meeting in the in person, just to sort of kick around potential topics, just to give everybody
Michael Kurilla: an opportunity to sort of bring bring things up. And then after that, the the
Michael Kurilla: the planning committee itself meets every 2 weeks, and it's
Michael Kurilla: it's been I. I think they've they've done a they've really improved over time and done a great job in terms of putting together a very
Michael Kurilla: a well fleshed out agenda and with interesting topics, so don't hesitate to speak up.
Grace McComsey: Yeah, please, please volunteer, we need your help.
Grace McComsey: Don't be shy.
Michael Kurilla: And it's not like there's going to be any dearth of topics to talk about.
Ted Wun: So I was just gonna say, there's gonna be a lot of things to talk about. So.
Grace McComsey: Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah.
Kerry James: All right, and that brings us to the next slide, which is.
Kerry James: if folks did want to. And, Mike, I don't know if this is the appropriate point. We can solicit some topics for the fall meeting. But the main point we wanted to make here, too, is that we're asking. Pod leads to. Please pull your pod members at your next pod meeting about ideas for the top, for topics for the fall meeting, and we'll bring those back to this group, of course, and talk those through and folks are, you know.
Kerry James: if if there's enough time and I think there may be, we can talk a bit about ideas you may have right now.
Ted Wun: Is there a way also? Since we just heard about the visiting scholars program to?
Ted Wun: We don't have a representative yet, I know, for for decay, and the T. But a way to pull them K. And T.
Ted Wun: Scholars. But about ideas, too, I think.
Ted Wun: Obviously things are very exciting for them as well.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah, no, it's a great idea, Ted.
Michael Kurilla: The other thing is, I'm I'm I'm I'm hopeful that we will actually have a
Michael Kurilla: Nih director. By. By the by, the fall.
Michael Kurilla: And so that's a potential keynote speaker. And
Michael Kurilla: you know, that individual is likely to come in with some ideas. And you know, I think the planning committee will have an opportunity given that it's likely to be later this spring
Michael Kurilla: that we'll have the Nih director to be considering some of the initiatives that individual might be considering and how we Ctsa may play a role in that. So
Michael Kurilla: I think there's a lot of a lot of things to be looking forward to.
Michael Kurilla: Jerry.
F. Gerard Moeller: I hate to ask this, but if we're going back, going back to our pods and talking to them, are there topics that are off limits
F. Gerard Moeller: for bringing this up like, for instance, the Dei.
F. Gerard Moeller: I suspect I was wondering.
Michael Kurilla: Yes.
Joni Rutter: Yeah, Jerry, I can try to answer that.
Joni Rutter: Given that we are working on being in compliance with the executive orders. I think that would be appropriate to to begin to to
Joni Rutter: understand how perhaps think about more about design of experiments rather than
Joni Rutter: Dei, or also training and workforce development as well.
Joni Rutter: But the topics of Dei, in relationship to the Grant award are no longer going to be supported.
Michael Kurilla: There!
Michael Kurilla: Damn.
Daniel Ford: Yeah, I was just saying, I I think it'd be good to think about who attends the meeting and who's the the audience? And and it helps the pi identify who should come, or who you know, who, even on the zoom, because while I'm all for the Knt, the Knt scholars are not really at the meeting.
Daniel Ford: And you know, maybe it's for the K. And T. Program directors. But I I just think we need to make sure that we match the topics to who's at the audience, and give the pi's enough time if there's a limited number of spots to get the right people to the meeting.
Michael Kurilla: Sounds like you're volunteering to be on the planning committee, Dan.
Daniel Ford: Last time, but but I guess I like I do the posters the whole thing like there are not that many Knt scholars at this meeting.
Michael Kurilla: Hmm.
Ted Wun: Yeah, I don't. I'm not sure we need
Ted Wun: topics where the K. And T. Scholars need to be there. But the suggestion mainly for
Ted Wun: suggestions of topics that are going to affect them that we can discuss. But your points well taken.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah. Agree?
Michael Kurilla: Agree?
Michael Kurilla: Well, any other questions, comments, insights. Mimi.
Mimi Kim: Yeah, just regarding the
Mimi Kim: the agenda for the upcoming fall meeting. The. I got a lot of feedback from my pod members about last fall's meeting, and
Mimi Kim: a lot of the Ctsa pis really wanted more structured time for networking. They felt that the 1 h pi meeting on the Thursday night and the Friday session, the tstr session, where there was some opportunity for interaction that that wasn't enough.
Mimi Kim: And they felt that the main purpose for them of going to these meetings is to learn from each other. So there are more opportunities for that. I think they would appreciate it.
Michael Kurilla: Okay, can certainly certainly adjust the agenda
Michael Kurilla: accordingly, to try to offer more networking opportunities. And I I
Michael Kurilla: really would would look would look forward to people making suggestions on what kinds of things we could do that would enhance networking rather than just
Michael Kurilla: giving people longer breaks.
Michael Kurilla: so, you know, it's that's what the planning committee will will take on.
Doris Rubio: I think your point is a really good one, Mike, because when you get people just a longer break, they run to their room and try and get work done which is not networking.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah. So I, you know, I'm I'm I'm always. I'm always curious about, you know, different ways to sort of organize.
Michael Kurilla: You know, we historically just have a sort of very, you know, focused session, 90 min sessions with panels, and people get up and give
Michael Kurilla: 10 to 12 min presentations and that sort of thing, and if there are other other ways to do it, I'm I'm I'm all for you and
Michael Kurilla: favor of that. But.
Ted Wun: Yeah.
Michael Kurilla: You know, it's it's got to come from the community.
Ted Wun: Yeah, although we don't want to get into the details too much. But one thing they do at the double Amc. Meeting is they just have tables that are broken by the topics.
Ted Wun: And then people can just self aggregate. And you can, you know, for popular topics, you can have a couple of tables. There and then, you know, have some sort of time limit or 2030 min, whatever it is, and you just switch so that you
Ted Wun: can do a little more networking. If the so you'll have a topic to aggregate around, but also meet people more meet more people.
Michael Kurilla: Okay, David, you're on mute, David.
David Ingbar: Sorry I was just going to comment that I know in last fall
David Ingbar: sort of last minute, and I'm not sure that it was kosher or official, but there was a informal gathering of the Kpis
David Ingbar: and you know some of those opportunities, if we know about them in advance. I mean there. There probably are some some
David Ingbar: interest groups. Dare I say, that are where people have like minded interests, and where that sharing can be really valuable, to have a second time of the year when people are together. So we might want to think strategically about sort of what are some of those groups and provide some structured opportunities for them, because I think we could probably define some.
Michael Kurilla: Okay, all right.
Michael Kurilla: So we can put your name down for the planning committee. David.
David Ingbar: I. Somehow I knew that was coming next.
David Ingbar: The dangers of speaking up right.
Michael Kurilla: All right, Amy.
Michael Kurilla: Any other final thoughts or comments.
Grace McComsey: Who's gonna volunteer now, Michael, after
Grace McComsey: have to get a day, but it's stuck no.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah. Well, if we don't, if we don't, if if Grace and I don't get enough, we will. We will just start
Michael Kurilla: volunteering people for the committee. So it's I. I don't think it's an incredibly onerous
Michael Kurilla: a time sink in terms of the planning. And I I really think that you know the what. What I see is the ability to come together and identify some really relevant cross-cutting topics that are of broad interest
Michael Kurilla: to the community where the Ctsas really have a
Michael Kurilla: critical role to play in advancing the, the.
Michael Kurilla: the clinical and translational science field. And, you know, bringing together, like minded people to talk about it. So
Michael Kurilla: And and as we've done in the past, the the speakers do not have to be limited just to within the Ctsa community. We can draw on whatever expertise you're really looking forward to, and I would not be surprised, as we move forward, that there's going to be a greater and greater focus on innovation. Which means, you know, getting outside of our ivory tower
Michael Kurilla: shells.
Michael Kurilla: So.
Ted Wun: Yeah. Just wanna add quickly, there was somebody else who put something in the chat. We can just since I was in Grace's shoes last year. It it the time commitment is not huge, but the but the commitment is invaluable. I think we
Ted Wun: sort of morph. The meeting quite a bit in response to the great contribution of all of the members. So I highly encourage the new members, especially to be involved, and if I'm allowed to volunteer.
Michael Kurilla: You are Ted.
Ted Wun: Alright, great!
Ted Wun: Alright! Ready!
reynold Panettieri: Yeah, Mike, Mike, that was a tough a tough sell, but I'm in. So count me in.
Michael Kurilla: Oh, great, good.
Michael Kurilla: good! And I'm looking at Elmer's. question in the chat interested only regular steer or representative specific communities. I'm not sure what you mean by when you say communities. I mean, we like to have. We like to have a sufficient number of steering committee members, so that we are really representative of what are the interests and the concerns of the
Michael Kurilla: Ctsa community in in general steering committee members, or, you know Pod leads, and you you can. You can reach out but but again I you know the Ctsas are not,
Michael Kurilla: are not the only game in town. And I think if we're really
Michael Kurilla: focused on a lot of innovative activities, we really do have to reach out. So I'd be curious to what what's kind of
Michael Kurilla: specific communities people are considering. But I think you know, if it's an area where the Ctsas.
Elmer Bernstam: Do express an interest in wanting to move into. I think we need to begin engagement.
Elmer Bernstam: Sorry I probably wasn't clear. So I'm I'm on this committee as a representative of the informatics group.
Elmer Bernstam: So so that's what I meant. So there.
Michael Kurilla: Oh, oh, oh, yeah. The Ecs, yeah. I think you know that. I mean the Ecs are where we expect to see.
Michael Kurilla: You know some of the newer ideas or themes emerging. And so yes, yes, you're certainly welcome.
Elmer Bernstam: Company, in.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Ted Wun: Yeah, I think you're full full voting members of the steering committee. So.
Elmer Bernstam: Right. But you understand.
Ted Wun: My question.
Elmer Bernstam: Is coming from, and maybe a more general, as opposed to pulling in one direction or another. So.
Michael Kurilla: Here.
Elmer Bernstam: Count me, in.
Michael Kurilla: All right. Thank you.
Michael Kurilla: Okay, well, we're a little early. I'm more than happy to give, unless there's any other comments. I'm more than happy to give people a few minutes back. 10 min
Michael Kurilla: got through that quicker than I thought we were. Gonna do. So if there's nothing else with the next meeting, as you see, is february 24, th
Michael Kurilla: and if we have additional guidance to relate, we will relate it so.
Grace McComsey: Mike, can I ask a quick question? Maybe I missed 5 min. Are you
Grace McComsey: issue any kind of guidance for Ctsa? I mean, we're getting questions like incessantly by our members.
Grace McComsey: I know it's tough, but is there any kind of.
Michael Kurilla: You know. And unfortunately, what you're hearing is what we're hearing, and we're go ahead. Joni.
Joni Rutter: I no, Mike, I was just gonna add on that that
Joni Rutter: our our Nih leadership is working diligently on on
Joni Rutter: sort of questions that the community has, and we'll be
Joni Rutter: issuing communications that will be coming from sort of Nih Central. And so our recommendation is to keep an eye on the guide and and those types of communications. And that way, you know, we're hoping that they're they're talking as we speak, and we're hoping that some of that guidance will come out this week hopefully earlier than later this week. But hopefully some of it will come this week.
Michael Kurilla: I mean, I think we can say that that you know Joni and I have have put a lot of effort into
Michael Kurilla: into promoting and conveying the needs and issues with the Ctsa. And and there's a recognition of.
Michael Kurilla: you know, a major program of Nih that you know, the the entire Nih community really is interested in preserving as much as possible. So
Michael Kurilla: your your your interests are being well articulated overall.
Grace McComsey: Good. Thank you.
Michael Kurilla: But but, as Joni said, a lot of the guidance has been pulled back to the level of Nih.
Michael Kurilla: and so there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of back and forth that's going on between Nih and Hhs, and beyond that we don't always are privy to.
Michael Kurilla: So when it when it comes out we'll know we. You'll know when we know basically.
Joni Rutter: Yeah.
Ted Wun: Yeah, I think. I think I echo all of us, that we kind of appreciate yours, your situation and and appreciate the support of the community. It's.
Joni Rutter: For that.
Michael Kurilla: Good.
Ted Wun: Okay.
Michael Kurilla: Hang on tight, hang on tight.
Ted Wun: Yes, that's that's essentially what we've been telling everybody, institutionally, too, is just hang on tight.
Michael Kurilla: Yeah.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Michael Kurilla: Alright. Well, you get, you get 7 min back, so don't don't spend it all in one place.
Michael Kurilla: Okay.
Ted Wun: Alright. Thank you. Take care!
Michael Kurilla: See you next time. Bye.
Cindy Mark, CCOS: Everybody take care!
Ted Wun: Alright, bye-bye.