Center for Clinical and Translational Science

On June 3, 2011, 21 participants from across campus graduated from the Center for Clinical and Translational Science Certificate Course, having completed two courses over the academic year.  The defining feature of the course is the requirement that each student creates her or his own hypothetical human subjects protocol, including an informed consent form. The students learn about each element of the protocol development and how it connects to the protocol development and review process through a series of tutorials in which outstanding translational investigators describe their research.

After completing their protocols, the participants functioned as a mock IRB, reviewing each of the protocols and offering suggestions to insure the optimal design and the greatest protection of the human subjects for each study. The protocols that were submitted in fulfillment of the requirement of the course were of exceptionally high caliber and offered insights into the clinical research interests of the talented group of investigators who enrolled in the program.

The first course, Introduction to Clinical and Translational Science, was offered in fall 2010. The course was 12 weeks and consisted of two 90-minute lectures per week. The first lecture described an important element in clinical and translational science (e.g., biostatistical considerations, human subjects protection, study design, and conflict of interest), and the second lecture was a scientific presentation by a Rockefeller University investigator explaining her or his research, emphasizing the element taught at the beginning of the week. The second course in the program, Introduction to Scientific Techniques in Clinical and Translational Science, began in March 2011. Led by Drs. Sarah Schlesinger and James Krueger, the course introduced the students to core resources available at Rockefeller University and their application to address critical problems in human biology. The students learned from the Rockefeller University core resource leaders about the resources available, and how to apply them to their research. The final project of the course involved the students returning to the protocols they developed in the Introduction to Clinical and Translational Science course and enhancing them by adding new techniques such as bio-imagining, monoclonal antibodies, high throughput screening, or gene targeting that would augment the research design and facilitate their ability to test their hypotheses.

Both courses received high evaluation marks by the students, with 100% of the students reporting that they would recommend the courses to others, nearly 82% of the students stating the course changed their views about clinical and translational research, and approximately 94% of the students stating that the course made them more likely to conduct clinical or translational research.

Students’ comments:
“It opened a totally different world.”
“This was a fantastic course. I enjoyed the breadth of the class topics and the great guest lectures.”
“This is a place where we can learn about all of the techniques and then we can think which is best for us.”


The next Certificate Program will begin in the fall of 2012, and applications will be open December 2011.