Achievements

Clinical and Translational Research Home for Georgia and Scientific Advances

From 2007 through 2026, this partnership has developed a Georgia home for clinical and translational research and has assisted 3,300 investigators including 1,900 Clinical Research Center studies, 1,350 Biostatistics and Research Design consultations, and 8,500 Collaboration and Team Science event participants; 576 Pilot Grants awarded with $25.7 million in pilot grant funding and over $196 million in follow-on funding, 8:1 return on investment; and 500 future clinical and translational scientists trained (MSCR, CPTR, KL2, and TL1 scholars or trainees). Direct support has also contributed to over 5,000 scientific publications, 250,000 citations, 2.4 times the average citation rate for comparable papers.

View Georgia CTSA Impact Report

Georgia CTSA's most recent direct support of breakthroughs in cutting-edge clinical and translational research:

Discovery

Training


Community


Pilot Grants

The Pilot Grants program has funded more than 576 projects totaling over $25 million in funding. The awards are divided between senior and junior PIs and are distributed across all CTSA partner institutions, spanning a spectrum of translational research topics. Pilot Grant recipients have subsequently received $196 million in extramural funding as a result of the preliminary work funded by the Pilot Grants program. The Pilot Grants program has also led to the issuance of 22 new patents leading to innovative medical practices and technologies.


Clinical Research Sites

Georgia CTSA Clinical Research Centers (GCRCs) play an important role in the understanding of disease processes as well as the research and development of a wide variety of treatments and vaccines. The GCRCs across all our partner institutions have supported multiple, high-value research projects including the NIH-funded RECOVER study of long COVID. Notably, the GCRC at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) has the highest enrollment of target populations, across the entire study. The GCRC at Emory is supporting a novel challenge study to determine the safety and efficacy of a Shigella vaccine as well as important research to validate influenza challenge studies. The Clinical and Translational Research Unit (CTRU) at UGA is supporting a recently funded National Science Foundation Innovation Engine grant. The CTRU continues to assist investigators in identifying rural counties to conduct community-engaged research.

The GCRC coordinator support services developed in the last few years have grown to support investigators in Surgery, Digestive diseases, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pulmonary, and Infectious diseases departments at Emory. The coordinator pool plays an important role in the education and training of new Clinical Research Coordinators (CRC).  MSM has developed a unique Clinical Research Coordinator certificate course with the aim of growing the CRC workforce. The Emory GCRC coordinator pool, UGA nursing team, and Emory core lab team successfully demonstrated the ability to provide cross-institutional support for the NIH-funded PreVail study, resulting in a quick response with support completed in less than one month.

GCRC Biorepository now includes samples for COVID-19, influenza, HPV, RSV, and Ebola convalescent samples available for diagnostic test validation. Requests for bionutrition services across the GCRCs has increased, for example, two new important feeding studies, the NIH-funded FEED-CF study in children and adults with cystic fibrosis and an NIH-funded study comparing the DASH diet with a control diet in individuals with heart failure.

Highlighted Study Impact: The team played a key role in supporting the TwoPlus Trial, a multicenter randomized study evaluating an incremental approach to hemodialysis designed to reduce treatment burden while maintaining safety and effectiveness. This study was recently featured in a Georgia CTSA news publication and shared by the national CTSA Coordinating Center (CCOS), highlighting Emory as one of the top-enrolling sites nationally. The GCRC team provided comprehensive support across the study lifecycle, including IRB modifications, participant pre-screening, enrollment, study visit coordination, data entry, and ongoing safety monitoring in collaboration with the site PI. Notably, the team ensured continuity of study operations during a coordinator transition period, demonstrating operational resilience and a strong commitment to study success. This recognition underscores the team’s critical role in enabling high-impact, patient-centered clinical research. Read more here.

GCRC Laboratory Services: The Emory PCI Laboratory Services team continues to deliver high‑quality sample processing, storage, and testing. With study support increasing to approximately fifty studies per month, the laboratory has maintained its use of Piccolo® clinical chemistry blood analysis and dry ice services for sample shipping.

GCRC Laboratory Services partnership with BioFire Defense Systems: We are also progressing with clinical diagnostic test validations for industry partners, with two validations completed, one currently in progress, and another beginning the submission process. 


Education & Training

Georgia CTSA Research Education programs include the Emory Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR), the Certificate Program in Translational Science (CPTS, recently renamed from Certificate Program in Translational Research to align with NIH focus), the KL2 (career development program for junior faculty focused on a career in clinical investigation), and TL1 program (supports predoctoral and postdoctoral clinical and translational research training). The Georgia CTSA-supported MSCR program has had 258 graduates with a Master of Science (MSc) degree including predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees, resident and fellow physicians, and junior faculty at Emory. MSCR graduates have had more than 5,400 peer-reviewed publications. The Georgia CTSA Research Education MSCR students and graduates have served as principal investigators on 166 NIH awards totaling $267 million. Currently, there are 22 first-year MSCR students who will start in Fall 2023, and 23 second-year students. The CPTS program has 96 students who have completed the program and there are 38 current CPTS students, including 19 students who will start in Fall 2023. The KL2 program has had 68 junior faculty KL2 scholars since the inception of the Georgia CTSA as well as three UL1 Supplement scholars. Approximately 70% of the KL2 scholars who have completed the program have obtained a federal grant (most commonly from NIH) as Principal Investigator (PI). The TL1 Predoctoral and Postdoctoral training program has had 147 TL1 trainees since the inception of the CTSA.

Key Achievements:

  1. Former Georgia CTSA Scholar Ezequiel (Zeke) Gleichgerrcht, MD, PhD will serve as site PI on a $2.8 million grant from the NIH to support the development of a next-generation neurostimulation device aimed at preventing seizures in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Additionally, his KL2 experience led to a collaboration with fellow KL2 scholar Sankar Alagapan, PhD (Georgia Tech), resulting in the submission of two R01 applications: one with Dr. Gleichgerrcht as PI and Dr. Alagapan as Co‑I, and another with Dr. Alagapan as PI and Dr. Gleichgerrcht as Co‑I. 
  2. Former Georgia CTSA KL2 scholar Grace Gombolay, MD, MSc is leading national collaborations to advance care for children and adults with rare neuroinflammatory diseases through her formation and leadership of the CONNECT (Conquering Inflammation and Epilepsies ConsorTium) registry and now the NIH-funded U54 ARISEN (Autoimmunity, Rasmussen’s, Inflammation & Status Epilepticus research Network). 
  3. New research findings from a study conducted by current Georgia CTSA MSCR student Ali John Zarrabi, MD were featured in the national media. This study found that psilocin extended the lifespan of human skin and lung cells in the lab by more than 50%.
  4. Current TL1 postdoctoral trainees (and current CPTS student), Dr. Jessica Strosahl, recently received a $50,000 grant from the National Phenylketonuria Alliance (NPKUA).
  5. Former Georgia CTSA KL2 scholar and former TL1 trainee Mandy Bekhbat, PhDreceived the National Institute of Mental Health K01 award “The role of monocyte metabolism and migration in inflammation-related reward circuit deficits and symptoms of anhedonia in people with HIV”. 
  6. Former Georgia CTSA KL2 scholar Jinhee Jeong, PhD received the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases K01 award “Neurovascular Mechanisms of Kidney Disease Progression in Older Adults”.
  7. Malinda Wu (MSCR 2019-2021, TL1 postdoc 2019-2020) received a K23 award at Johns Hopkins.
  8. Emory SCORE awarded $7.4 million NIH renewal - Vas Michopoulos, PhD, MSCR, is joining Cecile Lahiri, MD, as an MPI, previously held by Igho Ofotokun, MD, MSc, during the inaugural project period.

Pediatrics

The Pediatric Core serves to catalyze clinical and translational research for the state of Georgia. Comprised of the Pediatric Research Unit (PRU), the Emory Children’s Center Research Unit (ECC-RU), and the Morehouse School of Medicine Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Unit/Vaccine Trials Unit (MSM PCTRU/VTU) Research Unit, these three units provide a citywide infrastructure for expanded pediatric-focused clinical and translational research within the Georgia CTSA academic institutional partnerships. The services offered have expanded in each of these units, with the ECC-RU now equipped with a vein-finder for phlebotomy, the PRU with pulmonary function testing and Mullens tests, and the MSM PCTRU/VTU with a dedicated dietician and a mobile clinical research unit.

Investigators at each of these units now benefit from a Protocol Guide, who assists with budget generation, protocol planning and implementation, clinic oversight, scheduling, coordinator training, Standard Operating Procedure adherence for the clinic operations, and routine audits and monitoring visits. With the addition of the Protocol Guides and outreach efforts, the Pediatric Core has increased the number of clinical and translational trials opened in the units per year by 2.5-fold, the number of unique Principal Investigators supported per year by 1.9 fold, and the breadth of subspecialties represented within the research portfolio over the last 4 year period.

The Pediatric Core serves the broad community of Georgia. This past year, 2025, patients from over 150 distinct zipcodes were represented, including both urban and rural sites. These findings demonstrate broad geographic participation across the Pediatric Core research units and highlight the expanding clinical footprint of pediatric translational research activities across Georgia. In addition, 2 rural research outreach events were conducted, in Dublin and Sandersville Georgia, enrolling over 600 pediatric patients on the RADx protocol to test COVID-19 and influenza infections. These efforts expanded research access and strengthened infrastructure for decentralized pediatric study implementation.

The Pediatric Core continues to support the Annual Southeastern Pediatric Research Conference attended by hundreds of individuals from across the U.S., including all four partner institutions. Over 180 abstracts were presented, representing institutions across the southeastern United States (e.g. Mercer University School of Medicine, Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia Instiute of Technology, Morehouse School of Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, University of Alabama, and University of Texas at Austin). The abstracts presented innovative new research in child health, spanning topics of abating severe allergy, understanding sepsis, recovery from neurologic conditions such as stroke and traumatic brain injury, robotic interventions for children with cerebral palsy, mechanisms of leukemogenesis, to mechanistic pathways driving dilated cardiomyopathy.

Innovation Catalyst

Innovation Catalyst accelerates health technology through engagement, education, and outreach. Innovation Catalyst’s primary initiative, AppHatchery, takes simple mobile app ideas through strategy, user research, visual and user experience design, development, and minimal viable product (MVP) clinical study. Since 2019, the AppHatchery has launched a dozen digital health projects for both patients and clinicians in collaboration with several partners including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Grady Memorial Hospital. Several projects are in the development pipeline tackling diabetes management, allergy identification, and nurse/patient translation and communication. AppHatchery has authored multiple academic journal publications, presents posters at conferences, and collaborates on grant proposals with investigators. The Innovation Catalyst program also provides early-stage entrepreneur consulting and training to academic investigators who have limited experience with commercialization through its InnovationTrailhead initiative, and guidance on how to write SBIR/STTR grants through the BizGrants initiative. View and download some of the available applications below:

TypeU
TB Guide
Trial Connection
Fabla
Vocalis
Siby Chatbot
Ready for Tonsillectomy
RFT Texas
Pulse-OX
MealPlanR

Informatics

The Georgia CTSA Informatics Core enables innovative, data-driven research by providing investigators with secure access to clinical data, advanced analytics, and scalable AI/ML solutions. Serving Emory and partner institutions (MSM, Georgia Tech, UGA, Grady, and CHOA), the Core provides tailored informatics support throughout the research lifecycle.

With expertise in data engineering, real-time analytics, and cloud infrastructure, the Core integrates diverse data sources—including EHR, waveform, and social determinants of health—to accelerate discovery and improve patient outcomes. Key capabilities include AI/ML model development and deployment, cohort discovery, clinical trial support, and digital health solutions.

Key Achievements

  • Expanded Informatics Services: Delivered services across the Georgia CTSA amid rapidly growing demand, introducing advanced capabilities such as LLM tools, NLP, AI/ML model development, and enhanced recruitment via Epic MyChart and COSMOS
  • Enterprise Data Standardization: Implemented OMOP data models at Emory and MSM, enabling interoperable data sharing and participation in major national research networks
  • High-Value Data Resources: Built large-scale platforms, including the Emory Health Data Sandbox (6.7M patients), ICU waveform data (7M hours), and the Georgia All-Payer Claims Database (>1.5B records)
  • Real-Time AI & Analytics: Deployed real-time predictive models and a streaming analytics platform that captures >25 TB of physiologic data across ICU settings
  • Demonstrated Impact: Contributed to 36 publications and 27 abstracts, and engaged more than 1,000 participants through training and seminars, advancing data-driven research across the CTSA
Through enterprise platforms such as OMOP and Epic COSMOS, and through participation in national networks, the Informatics Core expands access to large-scale datasets while maintaining secure, privacy-conscious environments.

The Informatics Core is a critical driver of collaborative, scalable, and AI-enabled research innovation throughout Georgia and beyond.

Regulatory Knowledge & Support

The Regulatory Knowledge & Support (RKS) program has led to enhancements of clinical research efficiencies through the establishment of institutional agreements, such as the IRB Reciprocity, Intellectual Property (IP), and Data Use agreements. We have completed 190 Studio consultations for PI’s and teams in all phases of research (from draft proposal to post write-up) to provide regulatory, safety or ethical guidance. Georgia CTSA, in collaboration with Winship Cancer Institute has completed 180 free, non-binding ethics consultations nationwide. The new AI Regulation Blog features independent dialogue on the ethical, regulatory, and practical implications of fast‑moving AI. The Online Ethics Center includes over 40 ethical dilemmas in scientific research and expert opinions in PDF and podcast formats. RKS leaders have presented nationally and internationally regarding regulatory ethics, AI, and Pharmaceutical and FDA guidelines in translational research. Leaders continue to be available for consultations or presentations.

Regulatory Knowledge & Support also facilitated the adaption of the UGA School of Pharmacy online course for the Emory online learning system and worked with the UGA College of Engineering to create a five-year BS/MS that will lead to Pharmaceutical Engineering specialization. The program’s efforts are also supported by the UGA Institute for International Biomedical Regulatory Sciences (IBRS), which is the home of the UGA graduate education programs in regulatory sciences and clinical trials management. This program is one of the comprehensive regulatory programs in the United States covering all major biomedical product categories (Pharmaceuticals, Devices, Biologics, Animal Health, and Combination Products) and major regulatory agencies like US FDA, EMA and other major international regulatory agencies.

The Graduate Certificate Programs now include courses in Regulatory Sciences, Clinical Trial Management, Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance, Chemistry, Manufacturing & Controls, Medical Device and Technology Regulations, Animal Health Regulations, and Biopharmaceutical Regulations. The program actively responds to major information requests from Georgia CTSA investigators related to the regulatory processes of manufacturing and filing for multiple types of medical devices overseen by the FDA.

Community Engagement

AI for Health Outcomes Webinar: Exploring Opportunities and Risks in Population Health
Researchers, healthcare professionals, public health practitioners, organizational representatives, students, and technology experts gathered for the AI for Health Outcomes event to examine the rapidly evolving role of AI in improving population health. As one of the most highly attended webinars, the event fostered meaningful dialogue on how AI can be leveraged to enhance health communication, strengthen public health decision-making, support data-driven interventions, and address complex health challenges.

Grant Writing Academy (GWA): Building Capacity, Securing Funding, Advancing Impact
GWA is a premier workforce and capacity-building initiative designed to equip healthcare professionals, public health practitioners, academic investigators, and organizational leaders with the skills and resources needed to secure funding and advance public health priorities. Academies were held in Rome and Baxley, which have expanded grant readiness and research capacity in northwest and southeast Georgia, reaching organizations across the state.

The Georgia CTSA Community Engagement Workshop: Understanding Decision-Making Processes in Health
This program was designed to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and confidence of community members, public health professionals, healthcare providers, researchers, and organizational leaders to effectively engage in processes that influence public health outcomes. Through interactive presentations, practical exercises, and real-world examples, participants learned about the legislative process, policymaking structures, stakeholder engagement, and techniques for engaging decision-makers.

Translational Research-to-Practice Webinar Series: Advancing Knowledge, Partnerships, and Scientific Impact
The webinar series connects researchers, practitioners, and community stakeholders through timely discussions on effective communication, research dissemination, public policy processes, and research trustworthiness that support the translation of research into real-world practice. Through expert-led presentations and interactive dialogue, participants gain practical tools, evidence-based strategies, and insights to strengthen research and enhance public trust.

Dr. Tabia Henry Akintobi: Leader in Public Health and Community Partnerships
Georgia CTSA Community Engagement Director Tabia Henry Akintobi, PhD, MPH, was honored with the Rotary Women of Impact for Wellness Advocacy Award in recognition of her exceptional leadership and sustained commitment to improving public health outcomes. Through her pioneering work in translational science, she strengthened community partnerships and advanced innovative approaches to addressing public health challenges.

Dr. Alison (Ali) C. Berg: Advancing Community Health Through Extension Excellence and Community-Engaged Research
Georgia CTSA Community Engagement Nutrition and Health Specialist Alison (Ali) C. Berg, PhD, RDN, LD, received the 2023 D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Extension, one of the University of Georgia's highest honors recognizing exceptional Extension leadership and impact. Her work focuses on chronic disease prevention, health promotion, and supporting evidence-based nutrition and health practices through Extension programs that improve health outcomes and advance health statewide.

Grant Writing Academy Alumni Forum: Strengthening Professional Networks and Advancing Research Success
This forum brought together past academy participants to strengthen professional networks, celebrate successes, and advance community-engaged research and funding opportunities. The event provided a platform for alumni to share grant submission experiences, lessons learned, funding successes, and best practices while supporting continued collaboration among organizations, academic researchers, healthcare professionals, and public health leaders.

Partnerships

Creation of activities, such as the Southeast Regional Clinical & Translational Science Conference, that build strong partnerships with the private, non-profit Georgia Bio (encompassing the Georgia biotechnology community), Biolocity (formerly named the Coulter Foundation), and the state-sponsored Georgia Research Alliance to produce synergies that foster and accelerate new and emerging technologies and discoveries.

Expansion of existing synergistic partnership with Yerkes National Primate Research Center on informatics, animal models, and educational opportunities.

Development of a growing partnership with the Winship Cancer Institute, a designated NCI Cancer Center, and collaborative efforts with Winship in genomics, a phase I clinical trials unit, joint pilot grants, and synergy with the Georgia Cancer Coalition and the Atlanta headquartered American Cancer Society.

Development of healthcare partnerships with the largest healthcare networks in Georgia including - Emory Healthcare, Children's, Morehouse Medical Associates, Grady Health System, and the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Success Stories

Search Science Advance and Spotlight stories of success past and present