Engine of Innovation (Think Tank)

Director:  David D. McPherson, MD
Co-Director:  Robert C. Bast, Jr, MD
Contact person: Maureen Goode, PhD, ELS  Maureen.Goode@uth.tmc.edu 713-500-7924

The CCTS Think Tank is a group of creative and productive local clinical, basic, and translational investigators.  They provide guidance for CCTS investigators and for the CCTS in general through the following programs:

• Hypothesis-generating conferences.  Hypothesis-generating conferences are brain-storming meetings for new investigators.  In each meeting, members of the Think Tank, CCTS component staff, and other experienced advisors meet with a new investigator and his or her mentors to discuss the investigator’s research and career-development plans. The goal is to assure that the new investigator hones his or her research ideas into a workable hypothesis and plan for efficiently and rapidly generating useful translational or clinical findings.   The advice offered can include ways to refocus a too-broad research plan, ideas about finding external funding, suggestions on local and national collaborators and identifying subjects for studies, and information on the investigator’s specific field of research.  The team always encourages maximal use of CCTS resources. 
• Biannual Think Tank meetings.  The entire Think Tank meets twice a year with CCTS investigators (such as the CCTS TL1 trainees, KL2 scholars, and other CCTS trainees) to share information and establish new collaborations. 
• “De-siloization” focus groups.  At the first Think Tank meeting, the group established focus groups to address important biological and medical issues that cross the boundaries of specific diseases and specific institutions or schools in the CCTS.  The groups are:
       o Inflammation
       o Musculoskeletal diseases
       o Stem-cell research
       o Epidemiology and public health
       o Metabolic diseases
       o Neuroscience
       o Vascular issues

Each group includes researchers from the CCTS’s three component institutions who specialize in different but related research areas or diseases.  The participants’ combined efforts will synergize research in these areas by addressing the biology and mechanisms that underlie broad pathological processes rather than specific disease states.  Each focus group will identify cross-cutting issues their groups need to address and determine how the CCTS can facilitate research on those topics. 

For more information on the Think Tank or to schedule a hypothesis-generating conference, please contact Maureen Goode, PhD, ELS Maureen.Goode@uth.tmc.edu 713-500-7924