Origin: The Delaware Valley Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (DVICTS) was created in October of 2008 in response to a specific regional need and as a much needed and key strategic extension of longstanding collaborations between 4 of the largest institutions offering health care services and health care-related education in the state of Delaware and elsewhere in the Delaware Valley: The University of Delaware (UDEL) The Nemours Foundation, and specifically the Alfred. I. duPont Hospital for Children of the Nemours Foundation (AIDHC) The Christiana Care Health System (CCHS) The Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) The DVICTS has been created to be the catalyst that will transform the clinical and translational research and education institutional cultures of its 4 partner organizations with the intent to improve the health of the community within the Delaware Valley, including the entire state of Delaware and parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. This proposal leverages the long experience of the Delaware Institutions with IMBRE. The DVICTS is dedicated to the collaborative application of clinical and translational science methodologies at the 4 partner institutions through support for, and integration of, teams of investigators who will identify and deploy innovative bi-directional solutions to enhance the quality of clinical and translational research. In addition to the 4 lead partner institutions, the DVICTS is closely affiliated with 3 other academic institutions and 33 affiliated hospitals, and includes more than 130 research and clinical centers, and 14 schools and colleges. The DVICTS integrates pediatric, adult, and geriatric clinical and scientific programs, and aims to create novel, interdisciplinary, inter-professional, team-based educational programs spanning the entire health care training spectrum. The DVICTS will develop innovative collaborations between experts in community-based medical practice, health economics and policy, population sciences, public health and policy, and material and biomedical sciences to improve health care technology and to enhance access to and quality of health services for diverse communities. As the DVICTS will work across several State lines, the lessons learned from this CTSA we believe may be of direct value to the broader community of CTSAs and enhance the interactions between the national collaborative centers. We will ensure that the programs to be developed by DVICTS will serve as a template for multi-state clinical and translational science and education in the United States. In October of 2010, DVICTS submitted to the NCRR a grant application for a multi-institution "Clinical and Translational Science Award".