First time was indeed the charm for our inaugural training symposium, held February 20-21, 2019, in conjunction with the Southern Society of Clinical Investigation (SSCI) annual regional meeting in New Orleans. More than 85 predoctoral, postdoctoral, early career scholars, and senior faculty from 12 institutions and community agencies across the CCTS Partner Network gathered at the InterContinental Hotel to sharpen their grant writing and research skills, expand their translational thinking, and connect with new friends and future collaborators.

Sessions offered something for everyone, featuring expert guidance on study design, bioethics, and addressing health disparities via community based participatory research. Panel discussions provided additional opportunities to hear from experts sharing their best tips for advancing one’s translational research career and where to find funding. Attendees flocked to interactive workshops on design thinking approaches to mentoring challenges and feedback on specific aims for their grant applications.

Evaluation comments showed the symposium met needs for information, career guidance, and connection:

“I really appreciated hearing the perspectives of a business professor, community advocate, and other 'real' people, in addition to investigators."

“I am so glad I attended. In addition to the wonderful training sessions, I have met people from my home institution whom I didn’t know. “

“I had no idea about all of the resources. I wish there was a session on just CCTS.”

“I would highly recommend this to any of my colleagues doing translational research or wanting to get into translational research. It has been incredibly helpful.”

“The tremendous response to and support for this event from our many CCTS Partner institutions shows the richness and value of our Network. We will continue to build on the collaborative research relationships forged during our inaugural Translational Training Symposium to develop innovate ways to impact health across our region,” said CCTS Training Academy Co-Director Dr. Michael J. Mugavero.

CCTS thanks our translational experts, Training Academy Steering Committee, and Training Academy team, who pulled together to make our inaugural Translational Training Symposium a huge success—congratulations to all involved. Special thanks go to Training Academy Program Director Dr. Becky Reamey, who worked tirelessly to develop and deliver an outstanding program, including management of all logistics. We also wish to congratulate Drs. Michael Mugavero and Tonette Krousel-Wood for their SSCI Awards—Krousel-Wood received the 2019 Founders’ Medal and Mugavero the Student Mentor of the Year award—as well as the many CCTS trainees, past and present, who presented their work at SSCI. 

Current CCTS TL1 Trainees/SSCI Presenters

Haley M Bednarz
Joshua Aaron Blackwell
Francis Gill
Brendon Robert Herring
Alexandra Khodadadi
Austin Jones
Harrison Penrose
Tim Prior
Alexander Razavi

Inaugural CCTS Translational Training Symposium Team (* denotes Steering Committee member)