A common goal of translational science is better understanding of disease susceptibilities and mechanisms. Evolving approaches that take advantage of electronic health records, biorepositories and genotyping will create new opportunities for clinical phenotyping.

Meeting presentations described resources such as a central institutional review board (IRB), informatics and the clinical research pharmacy that the Veterans Health Administration has put in place to support data-intensive studies.

Opportunities for enhanced collaboration among Department of Veterans Affairs and NIH's Clinical and Translational Awards (CTSA) consortium were discussed. Topics include electronic health records, genomic and observational research, central IRBs, comparative effectiveness research and research training. See the following link http://www.research.va.gov/CTSA/agenda.cfm for the meeting agenda, speaker bios, and slide presentations.

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