Seattle Tuberculosis Research Advancement Center

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PROJECT SUMMARY (OVERALL) The Vision of the Seattle Tuberculosis (TB) Research Advancement Center (SEA-TRAC) is to facilitate a decrease in the global burden of TB through training and multi-disciplinary research. SEA-TRAC will accomplish this by catalyzing new avenues of research and training a cadre of new investigators that will make a meaningful impact on the global epidemic. SEA-TRAC will operate from three world class institutions in Seattle: The University of Washington (UW), Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. We will leverage close partnerships with local non-academic entities, such as the Institute for Systems Biology, Public Health Seattle King County, and PATH as well as international partners, such as the Kenya Medical Research Institute. The Administrative Core will lead SEA-TRAC and assume responsibility for strategic planning and operational management as well as promoting an environment to foster dialogue that will lead to new collaborations and funding applications. The heart of SEA-TRAC will be the Development Core, which will oversee several new educational, training, and grant programs designed to foster career development of junior or senior investigators that are new to TB research. The Clinical and Translational Science Core will lead training and consulting in clinical research methodology and foster collaborative research with our international partners. The Basic Science Core will provide training for scientists new to working in the Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) environment and lead training and consulting in advanced microbiology and immunology methods. Finally, the Data Sciences Core will leverage our local strengths in Biostatistics, Computational Biology, and Modeling to host community building events, such as TB ‘hackweeks,’ provide training to scientists that are new to data science, and offer consulting services for advanced research questions. Our Leadership Team is composed of faculty with a demonstrated commitment to training and mentorship that represent the diversity of scientific interests, tenure stage, gender, and ethnicity of our research community. We have secured institutional commitments totaling $861,420 or 29% of total direct costs that will allow us to support a diverse suite of programs immediately upon funding. SEA-TRAC will build on the strong foundation that has been established over the last five years by the UW Tuberculosis Research & Training Center (TRTC) to nucleate, strengthen, and expand the impact of our research. By the end of the funding period, we expect that SEA-TRAC will have achieved several quantifiable objectives and established itself as a flagship TRAC program, leading new initiatives through interactions with other TRACs and the NIH.