Nurse-scientists bring a unique perspective to the health sciences. The insights their research yields on everything from symptom management to public and occupational health have an enormous impact on the health of populations around the corner and all over the world.

In fact, faculty across the University are involved in and deeply committed to community engagement research, a core component of the campuswide UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI).

Established in 2006 with more than a $100 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the UCSF CTSI extends across all four schools – dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy – and its Graduate Division. It is designed to create an enterprise that promotes research and education in translational and clinical science at UCSF, in partnership with its training hospitals, UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center – and its affiliated institutions, including the J. David Gladstone Institutes.

UCSF School of Nursing Dean Kathy Dracup, a longtime proponent of taking an interdisciplinary approach to research and teaching, described the importance of the CTSI at UCSF and to improving health.

“The CTSI’s emphasis on translational research is very important for the faculty and students in the School of Nursing,” she said. “Research programs of the majority of our faculty involve the translation of basic science to clinical care and prevention of illness. We are not only involved in the transfer of research from ‘bench to bedside,’ but also the transfer from ‘neuron to neighborhood.’ All of the efforts of the CTSI team have increased our abilities to collaborate across structural units and to gain in the synergy of talents brought to the CTSI.”

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