Skip Derra, Skip.Derra@asu.edu
(480) 965-4823
May 7, 2004

New office to support clinical partnerships

ASU has established a new Office of Clinical Partnerships to help ASU researchers strengthen and expand connections to biomedical institutions in Arizona. Kathleen Matt, a professor in ASU's Kinesiology Department, has been appointed director of clinical partnerships. She will report to the vice president for research and economic affairs and the President's office.

The new office will facilitate ASU's translational research component by linking basic scientists with scientists in the clinical community. It will assist developing collaborations through establishment of seed grant funds, joint faculty appointments, shared graduate students and shared educational programs with ASU's partners in the biomedical community.

"Kathy will be the main person coordinating ASU's collaborative relationships with such biomedical research organizations as Banner Health, Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic, the Carl Hayden Veteran's Administration and other organizations," said Jonathan Fink, vice president of research and economic affairs. "This work will complement the organizational activities of ASU's Arizona Biodesign Institute, the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative."

"Over the past two years, Kathy has established close ties between ASU and the clinical community in metro-Phoenix, which provide a valuable foundation for her expanded duties," said George Poste, director of ASU's Arizona Biodesign Institute. "Her untiring efforts, creativity and unlimited enthusiasm for seeing discoveries translated to the clinic are the exact credentials needed to fill this important role."

"At Mayo Clinic, the goal of our medical research is to decrease the burden of human disease and improve patient care," said Victor F. Trastek, M.D., chair, Board of Governors, Mayo Clinic. "We are looking forward to working closely with Dr. Matt in her new role, which will be critically important in our ongoing collaboration with ASU as we continue to work together to develop mutually beneficial scientific advances."

"In order to fulfill ASU's outstanding promise in biomedical research, it will need to forge close working relationships with other medical institutions, researchers and clinicians in the state who have a similar commitment and complementary strengths," said Eric Reiman, scientific director, PET Center, Banner Health/Good Samaritan Medical and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona. "Kathy Matt has an outstanding reputation, close working relationships within Arizona's medical community, great energy and enthusiasm, and a wonderful collaborative spirit."

"Dr. Matt is truly an outstanding scientist and we both share our desire to build bridges between institutions to develop unique and outstanding programs that as an individual institution we could not provide alone," added Joan Shapiro, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Research at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center. "This position enables us to devote more effort in establishing these bridges, especially when it is important to combine the medical community with the basic science community."

Matt, who began her new duties on April 16, said the office provides structure as well as opportunity. "This is an important role because we don't have a medical school at ASU, but we have some exciting research with huge medical potential," she said.

Matt added that because many of these ties already exist between individual ASU researchers and clinics and hospitals throughout the state, the new initiative aims to provide structure to those projects and to simplify the process of making new research collaborations.

"This office will serve the entire university," Matt said. "There are so many things happening across campus that it can be difficult to get a handle on all of them. With this office, we will help coordinate many of those activities and make it easier for ASU researchers to find clinical collaborators and to direct clinical researchers to the right person on campus."

Derra, with Media Relations & Public Information, can be reached at (480) 965-4823 or (skip.derra@asu.edu).