Name Change!

SCCTER and SPCTRM have consolidated, and both are now known as Spectrum, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research. Changes to the website are underway to update to a new Spectrum logo and revised website content, combining both the old SCCTER and SPCTRM sites.

Effective now, please refer to the new name, Spectrum, in your documents. (note that Spectrum is a word, not an acronym, and it should not be written in all caps; use an initial capital letter only, please).

Spectrum

Spectrum, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research (formerly known as SCCTER) is an Independent Academic Center, established in 2007. Spectrum uses the outstanding and diversified interdisciplinary resources of the University to streamline, accelerate, and promote the translation of basic discoveries into practical solutions that improve human health in the community, and to educate the next generation of clinical and translational research (CTR) leaders.

Twelve highly coordinated Support Services and Programs, each led by a dedicated senior investigator and educator, emphasize three critical components of Stanford’s CTR effort: innovation, education, and implementation.

What is Clinical & Translational Research?

CLINICAL RESEARCH, as defined by the NIH (PHS 398 Part III Section 3), includes:

• Patient-oriented research. Research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive phenomena) for which an investigator (or colleague) directly interacts with human subjects. This includes (a) mechanisms of human disease, (b) therapeutic interventions, (c) clinical trials, or (d) development of new technologies. Excluded from this definition are in vitro studies that utilize human tissues that cannot be linked to a living individual.
• Epidemiologic and behavioral studies
• Outcomes research and health services research

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH, as defined by the NIH (RFA RM-08-002, Part II, Section I, Subpart 1), includes two areas:

• The process of applying discoveries generated during research in the laboratory, and in preclinical studies, to the development of trials and studies in humans
• Research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community