Clinical Translation Centre

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute has established a Clinical Translation Centre (CTC) to foster better links between the laboratory and clinic, with the goal being to facilitate better health outcomes.

Clinical Translation Centre staff (from left): Ms Jenni Harris, Mrs Cathy Quilici, Professor Andrew Roberts, Ms Naomi Sprigg and Dr Lina Laskos. The centre supports and encourages clinical collaborations with the institute’s highly-skilled clinician-scientists, who integrate direct clinical contact with their research programs.

The centre is designed to maximise the application of the institute’s scientific discoveries to human health, and make it easier for clinicians to train or work in the translation of fundamental research to improve outcomes for patients.

It is a central facility that forms the cornerstone of translational and clinical research at the institute, providing the infrastructure and personnel needed to expedite the translation of laboratory discoveries into clinical applications.

Facilities

Strategically located adjacent to a walkover into The Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Clinical Translation Centre provides ready access to collaborating clinicians and clinician-scientists from hospitals and other research organisations.

The Clinical Translation Centre comprises:

a laboratory and tissue culture room staffed by trained personnel, dedicated to the processing, storage and analysis of human samples for approved research;
freezer storage facilities for samples;
clinical contact rooms for confidential interviews and blood/non-invasive tissue collection from participants in approved research projects;
office and desk space for research nurses and other personnel assisting in ensuring compliance with the regulatory requirements of clinical research;
a state-of-the-art conference room to facilitate interactions between clinicians and scientists and foster two-way collaborations; and
a FACS Aria flow cytometer for the sorting and analysis of human tissue samples.
a FACS Verse for analysis of human tissue samples.

Services

Personnel in the Clinical Translation Centre help clinical researchers with a range of support services to assist their research programs.

This includes assistance with:

tissue collection from research project participants;
laboratory processing of samples, storage and distribution;
human tissue source identification/collection;
human ethics advice;
provision of control samples;
confidential storage of research project participant data in accordance with ethical guidelines; and
support with translational and clinical research.

Governance

The institute's Clinical Translation Standing Committee facilitates translational research for every institutional division.

The committee provides advice to the director and senior management about translational and clinical research, and assists the head of clinical translation, Professor Andrew Roberts, with the operation of the Clinical Translation Centre.

The group also has an essential role in attracting, supporting and retaining medically qualified researchers at the institute.