CTSI announces agenda for in-person Annual Forum on March 15

Annual Forum image.

Published February 1, 2023

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“Speaking in plain language that is understandable is critical in building trust and communicating with our patients and our research participants. This panel is a look at the present and the future of health literacy.”
Timothy Murphy.

The agenda for the 2023 University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Annual Forum on Wednesday, March 15, features distinguished presenters and wide-ranging topics, including explorations of health literacy and plain language, pediatric cardiomyopathy, and breast cancer chemoresistance.

In addition, for the first time since 2019, the forum will be in person. It will run from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Murphy Family Seminar Room (5019 A&B) at the Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The full agenda with a registration link is available now on the CTSI website.

CTSI Director Timothy F. Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, believes the return to an in-person format — following several years of virtual forums — will offer enhanced opportunities for dialogue and inspire future collaborations.

“It is so nice to be able to have personal interactions and conversations after two-plus years of distancing,” Murphy says. “Zoom served us well to get through the pandemic, but now that we are having more in-person get togethers, I am relearning how valuable they are. I am looking forward to having actual conversations again at the forum.”

The Annual Forum opens at 12:30 p.m. with welcoming remarks from Murphy. He will be followed by updates from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) presented by Erica K. Rosemond, PhD, Acting Deputy (Division) Director, Branch Chief and Acting Section Chief, Initiatives & Consortium-Wide Activities Section, Division of Clinical Innovation, Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program Branch, NCATS, National Institutes of Health.

Murphy, who will follow Rosemond with a “State of the CTSI” address, says the afternoon’s panel discussion highlights an important health equity issue that receives little attention in the training of healthcare providers and clinical researchers: health literacy and plain language.

“Speaking in plain language that is understandable is critical in building trust and communicating with our patients and our research participants,” Murphy explains. “The panel starts with comments from community representatives who have great insight into the topic. They are followed by three researchers who will discuss innovative approaches to communicating research in an understandable way. This panel is a look at the present and the future of health literacy.”

The panelists are drawn from a variety of fields. The lineup includes:

  • Kelly Wofford, MS, is Director of the Health Equity Office for the Erie County Department of Health
  • Veronica Meadows-Ray is a research team member and participant with the National Witness Project
  • Melanie Green, PhD, Chair and Professor of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Liise K. Kayler, MD, Program Director, Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation, Chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery, Jacobs School
  • Jinjun Xiong, PhD, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

The forum will conclude with 2022 Buffalo Translational Consortium Clinical Research Achievement Awards presentations, introduced by Clinical Research Achievement Awards Oversight Committee Chair Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School.

Top Award recipient Steven E. Lipshultz, MD, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Jacobs School, will discuss his study titled “The Genetic Architecture of Pediatric Cardiomyopathy,” while finalist Qianqian Zhu, PhD, Professor of Oncology, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, and Co-Director, Biostatistics and Statistical Genomics Resource, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, will discuss her study titled “UACA Locus Is Associated With Breast Cancer Chemoresistance and Survival.” Read more about the Clinical Research Achievement Awards and the 2022 winners in a recent CTSI feature.

For more information on the 2022 Annual Forum, including a deeper look at the panel discussion on health literacy and plain language, watch for the March 2 issue of the CTSI’s Translational Spotlight newsletter.