Research Resources

August 28, 2023

Information

Brian Smith, MD & Amy Blanchard, MS

ID10668

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00:00Thanks again, Linda.
00:02So just to say there's three of us at
00:06the at the four of us actually more
00:08than that at the leadership level.
00:10But the key people to know aside
00:13from myself is John Crystal on
00:16the grant that supports the,
00:18we call it the what's called the Clinical
00:21Translational Science Award from NIH.
00:23I'll just mention this in a minute.
00:25John Crystal,
00:26who's also Chair of Psychiatry and
00:29myself are the KOPI eyes on that grant.
00:31So we're obviously very deeply involved
00:34and Dave Coleman has come in as an
00:37Interim Director for for YCCI as well,
00:40which has really been great because Dave
00:44really is devoting all of his time.
00:45Dave was faculty here for for a number
00:49of years and then became a chair of
00:51medicine up at Boston University.
00:53And when he retired,
00:54somehow Nancy convinced him that what
00:56he wanted to do was to have another
00:58job that took 180% of his time up.
01:00I'm not sure how she did it, but it's great.
01:03So just to say so the Yale Center
01:06for Clinical Investigation is the
01:08broad infra and superstructure,
01:10if you will, for clinical and
01:12translational research here at Yale.
01:14That doesn't mean it operates all by itself.
01:16The Cancer Center has a lot of,
01:18a lot of its work.
01:19The departments have a lot of work within
01:21the departments in these areas and so forth.
01:23And it basically has sort
01:25of two funding mechanisms.
01:26Just so you're aware,
01:28there's the underlying grant,
01:30which is we were actually in the
01:33first group that received this
01:35major grant from from the NIH.
01:37That's whatever it is now,
01:38must be 1617 years ago, 18 years ago.
01:42I'm trying not to remember because
01:44I know we have to renew again in two
01:46years and and in addition to that
01:49there's somewhere between 20 and $25 million.
01:51It's actually contributed not just
01:53by the Dean's office,
01:54but to its credit by the owner haven
01:56health system to support clinical
01:58and translational research.
01:59And I think that's a a good example of
02:01kind of the partnership that I think is,
02:03is continuing to grow and and
02:06get better and better over time.
02:08We do a variety of things and let
02:10me just move on to that within YCCI
02:12that you guys should know about.
02:13And I want to make sure I leave
02:15enough time for Amy because she's a
02:17lot of substantive information to
02:18talk about on both based on basic
02:20cores and what have you as well.
02:21So what the YCCI supports is
02:23certainly educational programs for
02:25junior faculty members as well as
02:27a variety of trainees,
02:28students and very significant
02:31part at for training staff.
02:33One of the issues for those of you
02:35who are engaged in clinical and
02:37translational research frankly is
02:39workforce that's been challenging
02:40particularly since Kovat a lot of
02:42people work remotely now which is fine,
02:45but the total workforce that's
02:47out there sort of diminished.
02:48And so the fact that we can
02:51train up everybody
02:52is really good in terms of
02:54keeping that that workflow going.
02:55We also do pilot funding for in
02:58a variety of targeted areas that
03:00would that changes every year
03:02and there are some core research
03:04resource facilities that we support.
03:06And I'll tell you more about
03:07all this in just a minute.
03:09This past safe.
03:10This past safe staff and research
03:13support services that go along with this.
03:15One of the things that again is,
03:17is something that is crucial if
03:19you're doing a lot of this kind of
03:21research is all the regulatory issues
03:23INDIDE's you know all the stuff that
03:26goes along with that and and that's
03:28within the responsibility and the and
03:30the the the daily work of the Yale
03:34Center for Clinical Investigation.
03:35And just to be clear, and again,
03:36I think this reflects well on the
03:39university and I think it's why we,
03:40why where we are, we excel.
03:43I think it's part of the reason that we
03:45excel and that is that we really don't
03:47think of this is just a School of Medicine,
03:49a grant.
03:49And in fact it is a grant
03:50to the whole university.
03:51And there's huge participation not
03:52just by the School of Medicine,
03:54but by the School of Public Health,
03:55School of Nursing,
03:57actually the engineering school,
03:58the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
04:00and even even the law school and the
04:02School of Management have particular
04:03parts that we help to support
04:05through the YCCI for various types
04:07of really I think kind of exciting
04:09clinical and translational research.
04:11So this is just some of the educational
04:13funding opportunities and again,
04:15not worth going and into any
04:17great details on this,
04:18but just to say there's a
04:21multidisciplinary predoctoral program,
04:22there's a multidisciplinary
04:24postdoctoral program.
04:25Again,
04:25things that we can talk about and
04:27you can find out more about as
04:29needed if you're if you're you
04:31know hiring on grad students,
04:33postdocs etcetera.
04:33There's also two of the major
04:36educational programs that actually Yale
04:37number of years ago was instrumental
04:39kind of across the country and
04:41creating one is called the National
04:44Clinical Clinician Scholars Program.
04:46That's actually what some of you may
04:48know is the old Robert Wood Johnson
04:50program and that is a master's
04:52degree granting program with a very,
04:55very rigorous curriculum and
04:56really has is a two year long
05:01educational experience that
05:02really is, is excellent.
05:04And then the investigative
05:05medicine program is one that you
05:07may or may not be familiar with.
05:08This generally is for individuals who
05:10are MD Onlys who want to obtain a pH.
05:13D degree so that they can do their
05:15investigative work in that context.
05:16And that's exactly what this program does.
05:19And so if you are,
05:21if you have just the just the MD degree,
05:25many of us kind of do that and
05:26managed to do research on that.
05:28But it's not a bad thing to necessarily get
05:30the training for a PhD degree on top of it.
05:32And that can either be in the
05:34kind of in the more of the health
05:36services side of research and those
05:38kinds of things or even very,
05:39very basic, you know,
05:40flies and fish and all those kinds
05:42of wonderful things research.
05:43There's a number of other things
05:45on the faculty level.
05:46There's the YCCI Scholar Awards
05:49and that again is a mechanism for
05:51for junior faculty and again maybe
05:53something you're interested in and
05:54we can talk about it separately
05:56not to take the time now.
05:57And that has been a very successful program.
05:59It's really great.
06:00Of the folks that have come through it,
06:02we're always proud of this,
06:0398% are still engaged in research.
06:05There's been about 1000 grants
06:06that those folks have managed to
06:09to produce over the last 15 years
06:12or so with about almost a billion
06:14dollars worth of research funding
06:15from that and lots of publication.
06:17So it works well.
06:18It does extend across the
06:19entire research spectrum,
06:21again from very basic mechanisms
06:22all the way up to to public
06:25health types of types of issues.
06:28On the second thing here that we provide,
06:29there's pilot funding and core resources.
06:31The pilots are announced once
06:33a year that won't be coming out
06:35until the late fall this year.
06:38We also support some of the core resources,
06:41for example, the pets,
06:42a couple of the imaging centers,
06:44the PET Research Center and the Mr.
06:46Magnetic Residence Research Center,
06:49the Biostatistics and the bioinformatics
06:52support mechanisms for for clinical
06:55and translational research and
06:57actually help to also support the Yale
07:00Center for Genomic Analysis as well.
07:04So again that's kind of takes care of
07:06the first two things that the YCCI does.
07:09Then there's kind of the space and staff,
07:11and I managed to say it right that
07:13time and research support services,
07:15there's basically 4 area space areas that
07:18are out there, just so you're aware.
07:20And again, this is all the kind,
07:22there's a very high level kind of view.
07:24Just so you know, for outpatient work.
07:26There's a thing called the Church St.
07:27South Research Unit, which is,
07:31which is nice.
07:32It actually has a very patient friendly
07:34parking which is not always true in
07:36New Haven and has the ability to see
07:39patients there for research protocols,
07:40even do infusions provide for the
07:44bottoming support and so forth and so
07:46on. There's an inpatient
07:47unit which is called the HRU,
07:49the human research unit within the
07:51confines of Yellow Haven Hospital.
07:53There's actually a sort of a new two
07:55bed unit that's right where the imaging
07:57centers are because sometimes people
07:59really need that aspect of things,
08:01but you need to do an infusion
08:03or this or that beforehand and
08:05support and that that helps to
08:07increase throughput for for clinical
08:09trials and translational trials.
08:11And we actually have a unit out of
08:13what's called the West Campus which
08:14was designed for COVID for individuals
08:17who were who were COVID infected and
08:19who were going to get trials and we're
08:21getting trials for that group of patients.
08:23So we can keep it isolated and
08:25all that's still out there and
08:26is is another effective unit.
08:29I'm not going to talk details
08:30about workforce development.
08:31I kind of alluded to that a few moments ago.
08:34But again that's one of the ways
08:35we have to try to keep enough
08:37support out there for the kinds of
08:40individuals that you need to do that,
08:42this kind of this kind of research.
08:45There is,
08:45there is a part of the YCCI
08:48that helps with recruitment.
08:50It extends all the way from something
08:52called the help us Discover clinical
08:53research awareness campaign,
08:54which actually includes
08:58samples and a number of individuals
09:00who have said they're fast.
09:03You know, they're they're very
09:04happy to be involved as sort of
09:06normal controls and what have you,
09:07all of which is very helpful.
09:09And there's a whole kind of
09:10infrastructure to try to,
09:11to try to do that. Right now,
09:13most of what we do is centered at
09:16Young Haven Hospital and this medical,
09:18the academic Medical Center here
09:20and the Yale School of Medicine.
09:21We do extend out to some of the
09:24other hospitals that Bobber was
09:26talking about earlier today.
09:27We have a goal of the course of
09:29next two years to make that part
09:31of doing the research that we can
09:33do truly across the entire health
09:35system smoother for everybody.
09:36One of the things that's been
09:39particularly successful particularly
09:40in in trying to get over all the very,
09:43very significant historical barriers
09:45to a lot of communities being
09:47involved in clinical research
09:49and not trusting our enterprise.
09:50We've really done a terrible
09:52job convincing people out there
09:54it doesn't matter who that that
09:57we're actually trying to do help
09:59instead of harm to the populations.
10:01Nevertheless,
10:02this was created now about 15 years,
10:0410 years ago, 11 years ago.
10:06The culture ambassador collaboration
10:08works through a variety of community
10:11groups including the AM E Zion
10:12churches and some of the pastors and
10:15and and individuals in in the in the
10:17church as well as one of the advocacy
10:21groups for for Hispanic individuals,
10:23Latinx individuals across the state.
10:25And that's been very successful and
10:27something else that's available.
10:28It's a really,
10:29truly a bidirectional kind of
10:31operation which is really nice.
10:32I mean they tell us what they
10:34think we should be doing,
10:35we tell them what we're doing and we
10:37try to get together on the on those
10:39two things and that's been terrific.
10:40There's a lot of compliance issues out there.
10:42Again,
10:42that's kind of the whole regulatory part.
10:44I won't torture you with all of that,
10:46but we have an infrastructure that tries
10:48to meet a lot of the things that become real,
10:52real issues for for these
10:55kinds of investigations.
10:57Finally,
10:59just to mention again that this is
11:01focused not just at the School of
11:02Medicine but across the the health
11:05system and across the various other
11:08schools within within Yale University.
11:11This is kind of a geographic view of
11:14all the places that that the YCCI touches.
11:17Many of these places have places
11:19to do pure research operations.
11:22Sometimes that's a coordinated with
11:24our clinical sites out there through
11:26Yale Medicine and Yellow Haven Health System.
11:28We want to do more and more
11:30of that coordination.
11:31Some of them are freestanding sites
11:34meeting particular needs that people have
11:36for their for their clinical research.
11:39We do actually interact well with
11:40the with the VA on these kinds
11:42of things as best one can with
11:44a federal entity which can be
11:45challenging in and of itself.
11:47There are a variety of other community
11:49partners out there,
11:51including the two FQHC's in in New Haven,
11:55Fair Haven and Cornell Scott.
11:57And there's actually a fairly
11:59good rapport with the community
12:00practices that may practice it.
12:02Young Haven Hospital and
12:05across the health system.
12:07There is a website.
12:10Gee, we're surprised and there's a
12:12variety of ways to kind of use that
12:14to help navigate your way around.
12:16But again, questions and things like that,
12:18please feel free to to,
12:20to e-mail myself, Dave Coleman,
12:23John, what have you that then that
12:26would be that would be great.
12:28And you can find all this on the website.
12:30You can actually do it by just kind
12:32of Googling YCCI plus whatever
12:34it is you're looking for and
12:35that that pretty much works well
12:39form which is short read sequencing.
12:41But we also have a microarray core which
12:44does long read sequencing with the pack bio.
12:47The microarray core also does 10X genomics.
12:49So we really do a lot of single cell work
12:52and we're actually going to be expanding
12:55on those on those types of services.
12:58And then both YCGA and microarray
13:01do offer spatial transcriptomex type
13:03services which we are working on
13:05expanding those and bringing some new
13:08technologies in for both of these cores.
13:10The staff provide services for
13:12next generation sequencing,
13:13bioinformatics and microarrays.
13:17We on top of the next generation sequencing
13:19we do offer a Sanger sequencing core.
13:21So this is a separate core and they do
13:24anything from individual samples to plates,
13:26PCR purification.
13:27They have an extensive a list of
13:30fragment analysis services and
13:31this is all staff provided.
13:33So you would drop samples off and you will
13:35get data you know usually within 8 hours.
13:37We really work to have a very
13:39quick turnaround time on that.
13:41Same thing kind of goes for
13:42the oligo resource.
13:43So we'll do anything from you know
13:45your standard primers to really
13:47complex oligo so you can reach out to
13:49them and they will help you design,
13:52you know trimmer base like there's
13:53there's just so much that they're
13:55doing at this point,
13:56so you can reach out to them and they
13:58will help you with some custom synthesis.
14:02Our biophysics resource studies oligomeric
14:04states of biomolecular assemblies.
14:07So there's several technologies available,
14:08light scattering surface plasma
14:12and resonance, you know,
14:13field flow fractionation and we
14:16recently added a nanoparticle tracking
14:18analysis technology to this course.
14:20So that has proven to be quite useful
14:23and you know it's it's an exciting
14:26addition to the biophysics resource.
14:28Our macromolecular structure analysis
14:30consultation core doesn't actually
14:32run any samples but what we have
14:34in this core is expertise.
14:36So if you have any macromolecular
14:39structures or cryoem based images
14:41that you really need some help
14:43with the analysis of it.
14:45So Janine is wonderful and he you
14:48know can really help answer the
14:50questions that you were asking in the
14:521st place and really push a lot of
14:54these structures to publication our
14:56mass spec and proteomics facility.
14:58They do everything from basic protein
15:00ID to intact protein determination.
15:03They do high resolution for
15:05small molecule work,
15:06targeted proteomics and they
15:09do some metabolomics services.
15:12Everything is staff provided though
15:14they do have one Open Access
15:16instrument so that you would,
15:18you know with some help from the staff
15:20you would independently be able to
15:22design your experiment and you know go
15:24through everything up to data collection.
15:27One of our newest cores is
15:28the chemical metabolism core.
15:30This is all staff provided services,
15:32but they specialize in mitochondrial
15:35work and metabolomics,
15:37so you can definitely reach out to them.
15:39They do like I'm a MOSA platform that's
15:43again not available anywhere but Yale,
15:45so it's very specialized.
15:49The Yale Genome Editing Center creates
15:52genetically engineered mice via
15:54CRISPR. They do cryopreservation.
15:56They also do assisted
15:58reproduction techniques.
16:00This is all staff provided
16:02services and they're they're
16:03very much into working with you
16:06to design exactly what you need.
16:08And they have,
16:09they can really tailor their
16:10services based on your needs.
16:14Our zebrafish phenotyping core they do,
16:17they create transgenic zebrafish and then
16:19they provide assistance in phenotyping.
16:22This is all staff provided
16:24service and again very,
16:26very tailored to what you know your needs
16:30are the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery.
16:32So they have resources for assay
16:34development and high throughput
16:35screening mostly for drug discovery.
16:37So this core is very specialized in the
16:39fact that you know all of your all of
16:42your experiments would be very different.
16:43So they definitely work with you from
16:45the beginning to design the best you know
16:48technique for what you're looking to do.
16:50This is all staff provided service,
16:52so they do have a self-service laboratory.
16:54So once you're trained on the instruments,
16:55you would have independent independent use.
17:00And we have a stem cell core,
17:02they do I PSC derivation,
17:04genomic editing,
17:05pluripotent stem cell quality testing.
17:08They have really a full range of stem
17:12cell technologies available and they they
17:15routinely kind of change around whatever
17:17they're doing in order to meet the needs.
17:20And they they really specialize in some
17:22of the extremely hard genomic editing.
17:25They're they're able to really do
17:27a lot of things that other places
17:29just aren't capable of and these are
17:32all staff provided services also.
17:34And finally, we have our custom machine shop.
17:37So a lot of times if you can't
17:39find something for your lab,
17:40you can reach out to Tony and he
17:42will actually fabricate, you know,
17:44design and fabricate something
17:45completely custom to to meet your needs.
17:48So like I said,
17:49it's a very unique resource to have
17:51on campus and very, very valuable.
17:55So please reach out to me with any
17:57questions at any time and then this
17:59can be found on the OAPD website.
18:01So you can read through all the
18:03information that I did not discuss
18:06today and I keep this updated and
18:07you can reach out to me,
18:09you can reach out to Brian,
18:10you can reach out to any of the
18:12cores at any time.
18:13And we really look forward to
18:15working with you.