Strategies for innovation and interdisciplinary translational research: removal of barriers through the CTSA mechanism.

The National Institutes of Health's Clinical and Translational Science Award program has had a profound impact upon the way research is conducted at the University of California, Davis. University of California, Davis was among the first cohort of 12 institutions to receive National Institutes of Health funding for this award, and created its Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) in 2006. The presence of a CTSC has led us to develop new ways of bringing together and supporting researchers from diverse fields, and the CTSC has impacted on virtually every area and infrastructure resource involved in supporting clinical and translational research at our institution.