To achieve our goal to reduce the timeline for translational medicine by 50% or more over a 10-year period, we have identified six key focus areas for the Academy of Translational Medicine:
1. Create a culture of connectivity and collaboration
- Reduce disease-focused silos
- Enable transdisciplinary research collaborations
- Break down geographical and institutional barriers to research
2. Provide regulatory affairs support
- Provide a regulatory infrastructure for new discoveries
- Enable partnerships with health authorities and industry
- Establish policy for regulatory affairs protocols
3. Facilitate industry-university partnerships
- Increase collaboration and early partnerships between university and industry
- Generate infrastructure and mentorship programs for developing tractable ideas and discoveries and partnering with industry
4. Advance education and training
- Improve the overall knowledge base around translational medicine across all sectors of the translational pipeline
- Educate the next generation of translational researchers in navigating the pipeline from discovery through clinical trials, commercialization, regulatory affairs, etc.
- Educate the workforce for the local bio-innovation industry
5. Support key research capabilities
- Establish key research capabilities to fill urgent needs, for example, biomanufacturing and first-in-human clinical trials
- Establish research and technology platforms to support the rapid progression of new discoveries through the translational pipeline, for example, an RNA therapeutics platform, MAPCore for advanced molecular pathology, “cutting-edge” CRISPR editing, and a Single Cell Observatory
6. Enable secure and user-friendly cross-sector data sharing
- Shared leading-edge technology platforms (Super Platforms)
- Provide shared data commons
By leveraging existing strengths, facilitating the creation of a vibrant collaborative ecosystem and adding new key technology and expertise platforms, the ATM aims to enable a complete an end-to-end translational pipeline to support the rapid translation of new discoveries to approved therapies and into real-world impact for patients and communities in B.C.
“The result will be improved patient and population health, equity and quality of life, as well as enhanced sustainability of our health care system.”
Dr. Dermot Kelleher, Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Vice-President, Health, UBC.