With upwards of 400 attendees, the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) retreat at Purdue University was the largest such retreat ever hosted on the West Lafayette campus. George Wodicka, PhD, who is one of the co-directors of Indiana CTSI, says the large turnout, split evenly between investigators from Purdue and other Indiana CTSI campuses, shows that great collaborations are already happening and many more will occur in the future.
“It really has energized the campus, not only our faculty members, but also our students, because they see they’re entering fields where the translational research they’re interested in will be supported,” said Wodicka. “This brings all of us great joy.”
The retreat took place on Friday, January 31 at Purdue’s Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering. The theme was, “Engineering Giant Leaps in Medicine.” Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD, who is the director of National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), National Institutes of Health, gave the keynote address in the Hall’s new Innovation Wing.
“Bruce Tromberg’s presentation about the NIH/NIBIB was inspiring,” said Wodicka. “So many of the programs that they’re spearheading and supporting align with our inter-institutional educational initiatives, as well as collaborative research.”
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- Keynote speaker Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD
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- Crowd watching keynote speaker
After the keynote address, engaged young investigators at their thematic posters were spread throughout the expanded Jischke Hall.
In the afternoon, investigators participated in parallel engineering and clinical breakout sessions, in order to match clinical needs to potential technological solutions. Each session was attended by 50-100 investigators, providing ample opportunities to catalyze collaborations. The engineering sessions were in the emerging areas of:
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- Wearable Technologies
- Point-of-Care Diagnostics and Treatment
- Healthcare Data Connectivity
- Personalized Medicine and Precision Health
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- Personalized Medicine and Precision Health engineering breakout session
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- Point-of-Care Diagnostics and Treatment engineering breakout session
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- Healthcare Data Connectivity engineering breakout session
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- Wearable Technologies engineering breakout session
The clinical sessions focused on areas of critical healthcare needs in:
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- Pediatrics
- Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases
- Oncology
- Substance Use Disorder
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- Pediatrics clinical breakout session
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- Substance Use Disorder clinical breakout session
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- Oncology clinical breakout session
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- Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases clinical breakout session
Overall the day was a resounding success at an unprecedented scale and scope.
The next Indiana CTSI retreat will be on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend on Friday, February 21.
