Established in 2009, Conduits, the Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) includes a diverse network of research-involved stakeholders and research participants. In September 2013, we formed a new, integrated and expanded health system called the Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS), which includes the ISMMS and 7 member hospital campuses, vastly enlarging and diversifying our catchment area and giving us access to an even more diverse faculty and staff, trainees, research participants and accompanying stakeholders. In 2012, ISMMS and RensseIaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) entered into a long-term partnership designed to foster educational and research collaborations, which exploits MSHS excellence in biomedical research and patient care, and RPI's strengths in engineering and computational sciences. Conduits mission is to advance human health by transforming this hub into a translational research laboratory, partnering with our diverse patient population, other stakeholders, institutional clinicians and scientists, and investigators at other CTSA Network Hubs to ensure high quality research, research education, and development of unique, innovative resources to catalyze translation of biomedical discoveries across the “lifespan.” We will accomplish this by achieving the following Specific Aims: 1: Ensure that translational researchers have the skills and knowledge necessary to advance translation of discoveries by developing innovative curricula for high quality clinical and translational research training of students, investigators and research staff at all levels. 2: Expand programs to further promote workforce diversity through recruitment, education, mentoring and retention of the most talented students, faculty and researchers, 3: Foster a collaborative, collegial, transdisciplinary (shared) environment within our CTSA hub and the CTSA Network that includes incentives for formation of multi-disciplinary translational teams. We will also collaborate with other CTSA hubs to improve translational research. 4: Coordinate the health care delivery and translational research enterprise by integrating secure electronic health records (EHRs), web-based clinical trials management systems and institutional databanks to better engage patients and community clinicians in clinical trials and community engaged research. 5: Engage a diverse group of stakeholders at the local and national level in all phases of translational research, including patients, caregivers, clinicians, and healthcare delivery representatives, advocacy groups, NIH Institutes & Centers, other NCATS funded CTSA Hubs, biotech and pharmaceutical companies and venture capital firms. 6: Incorporate translational research across the lifespan, with particular focus on pediatric research, geriatric populations, and special populations affected by health disparities. 7: Continue to innovate and streamline research administrative oversight and processes to minimize roadblocks, identify and rectify gaps, ensure quality and assurance, monitor outcomes and garner feedback from stakeholders.

The goal of Conduits, Institutes for Translational Science, a partnership of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (including the recently expanded Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) which now spans 7 hospital campuses) and its partner Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (with strengths in engineering and computational science) is to transform the national translational research enterprise to improve human health by developing and sharing innovative educational programs, participating in CTSA (Clinical and Translational Science Award) network-sponsored trials including centralized regulatory oversight, increased efficiencies and data-sharing, incentivizing team science and expansion of a diversified workforce, and developing new tools to integrate and securely “mine” diverse health-related datasets throughout the MSHS and eventually all interested CTSA hubs in the national network. In the upcoming funding period, Conduits, will address number of major challenges and roadblocks inherent in the current translational research enterprise, which when resolved will lead to extraordinary opportunities, expansion and vitality in our research programs, research training, informatics efforts and community and stakeholder engagement.