Center for Accelerating Excellence in Translational Science (AXIS)

Mission and Values

South Los Angeles Service Planning Area 6, which comprises 68% Hispanic/Latino and 27% African American individuals, is an impoverished area with healthcare access and socioeconomic standards that are lower than any other county in Los Angeles and in the US. As a result, these communities have the highest incidence, morbidity, and mortality rates associated with cancer, cardiometabolic diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Our Program will focus on understanding how these socio-economic and environmental factors affect cellular, molecular, genetic, and epigenetic drivers of poor health outcomes in our communities and identifying opportunities for interventions to reduce health disparities.

Goals

Goal 1: To enhance the infrastructure capacity in translational research using the Precision Medicine model in the areas of Cancer, Cardiometabolic, and HIV/AIDS. Provide support for research pillars in Mental Health and Health Services Research.

Goal 2: To continue integrating basic, clinical, behavioral, and community-partnered research by fostering collaboration among disciplines, departments, and schools at CDU and sustainable collaboration with community leaders and investigators across other research institutions.

Goal 3: To facilitate and elevate professional development and best practices in mentored clinical and translational research training on health and health disparities

To achieve these goals, we combine a basic science project, a clinical trial Project, and a behavioral research Project, all focused on reducing health disparities among Hispanic and African American populations in the greater Los Angeles area. Four Cores will support the three Projects.

An Administrative Core to provide oversight and facilitate implementation of critical activities to procure resources, budget and monitor finances, assess and direct research faculty, and support staff productivity.

An Investigator Development Core to continue a pilot project program and provide comprehensive research resources and support, mentoring, and skills development training for early-stage investigators, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty.

A Research Capacity Core to continue to provide transdisciplinary research infrastructure in Drug Discovery, Biomedical Informatics, Clinical Research Resources and Facilities, and Research Methods and Statistics while expanding our services with the Next-Generation Sequencing Unit and the Exosomes and microRNA Unit.

A Community Outreach Core to facilitate communication and engagement with the community, enhance education and compassion, and increase research capacity via the local community.