Thank you for attending the 3^rd Annual Scientific Meeting for the Great Plains IDeA-Clinical Translational Research (CTR) network. Taking place at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Ne, on October 23-24, 2019, we had record-breaking attendance with nearly 250 attendees from across the country. This year’s meeting focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in CTR. We are so grateful that you were able to attend and hope you will continue to contribute to the network in the years to come. In a year marked by progress – such as grant writing workshops and mentor training; physical resource development including situation of new equipment to catalyze CTR across all partner sites; dissemination of services to facilitate CTR; leveraging of resources across IDeA programs; development of new resources such as an Alzheimer’s Disease practice-based research network and registry; and funding of new pilots and further supporting our Scholars – this year’s ASM highlighted our many accomplishments while bringing in renowned experts in clinical and translational research from across our network and country.

In line with our theme of innovation and entrepreneurship in CTR, Dr. Krishan Arora, Program Director in the Division for Research Capacity Building at NIGMS, gave a keynote speech highlighting resources and strategies for investigators to bring ideas from the “lab to market.” Dr. Douglas Wright, Kansas INBRE Principal Investigator and President of the National Association of IDeA Principal Investigators, honed in on regional resources for fast tracking early stage science to market. Dr. Beverly Davidson, Chief Scientific Strategy Officer, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, discussed innovative new therapies for neurodegeneration. The meeting also showcased regional resources and success stories of innovation in CTR, community engagement, and GP IDeA-CTR leadership plans to further build infrastructure for CTR. We were fortunate to hold five Informational breakout sessions that focused on the themes of building research teams, evidence-based repositories and comparative effectiveness research, intelligent algorithms in medicine,  access and use of EHR data, and surviving study sections.

Our highly anticipated 3^rd annual CTR Superstar competition featured four exceptional finalists, pitching innovative research ideas to an esteemed panel of judges, namely Michael Dixon, PhD (President & Chief Executive Officer, UNeMed); Sally Hodder, MD (Associate Vice President for Clinical and Translational Science and Director, Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases, WVU); and Michael Yanney (Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Burlington Capital, formerly America First Companies L.L.C.). In a surprise twist, an anonymous donor graciously contributed a second $10,000 pilot award. The grand prize went to the wonderfully innovative project by the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Dr. Siwei Zhao, which introduced a novel ionic circuit-based ocular drug delivery device. The bonus award went to the wonderful project on sensory manipulation in dysphagia recovery developed by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Dr. Angela Dietsch. They both walked away with a substantial pilot seed fund to propel their groundbreaking ideas.

We were proud to host clinicians, basic and clinical scientists, community members, educators, and administrators at our meeting and welcomed a diverse set of ideas and backgrounds as we continued strengthening our network to build CTR and, ultimately, improve the health of individuals across our region. We hope you are able to join us next year!