Welcome Science Translational Medicine Readers

CTSciNet, the Clinical and Translational Science Network, is a new initiative of Science Careers, AAAS, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, our sponsor, with assists from a variety of partners in the medical science community--including Science's exciting new journal, Science Translational Medicine.

As Elias Zerhouni, chief scientific adviser of Science Translational Medicine, writes in the journal's opening editorial, "The creation of a redefined discipline of translational medicine will require the emergence of a new and vibrant community of dedicated scientists, collaborating to fill knowledge gaps and dissolve or circumvent barriers to improved clinical medicine." To that end, and as announced on 15 May in a Science editorial, CTSciNet aims to encourage and support scientists who wish to become a part of this community and, indeed, to assist in building the community itself.

In the Science Careers tradition, the emphasis of CTSciNet is precisely on training and career development. CTSciNet exists to keep current and aspiring scientists attuned to the most important career-related developments in clinical and translational science and to help them identify the skills they'll need to move science and medicine forward. For months, CTSciNet has been building up a collection of articles and resources on clinical and translational science careers that's already unparalleled in its breadth and thoroughness and that will continue to grow in the years to come. The focus is not on the science itself but on all the components of a successful scientific career.

Because this is a great challenge--and because there are already a lot of scientists eager to address it--we aim to be a focal point and to enlist the whole community in the effort. We're doing that in two ways. First, we are forging partnerships with the most important medical-science organizations and working with them to pool career resources specific to clinical and translational science. We hope to involve as many people and organizations as possible in building this collective career resource. If your organization is interested in contributing to the effort, we urge you to join us; just send us an e-mail.

The other way we're enlisting the community in this effort is by convening, well, a community. We've set up a social-networking infrastructure designed to help scientists find other scientists with similar or complementary interests, form partnerships and collaborations, and discuss career-related and scientific issues. We hope you'll register, post a profile, join a few groups, and start some conversations. If there's a particular area of science you'd like to discuss and you don't see it covered yet, request a new group and we'll create it for you. (You must be registered to request a new group.)

Right now, the platform is basic and still in beta. But we intend to continue to develop it in the months and years to come, improving usability and, as we gain deeper insight into the platform's real potential, adding innovative features. We've created a Community Tour to help you get started.

We have high aspirations for CTSciNet. We hope to have an informal hand in training the next generation of clinical and translational scientists. We hope our community will provide a "place" for scientists to meet, discuss interesting problems, and form collaborations--and use the online community in new and unexpected ways. We fully expect the connections made on our virtual pages, and the ideas that are discussed there, to contribute to major scientific advances. We want to be your partner--and to help you find other partners--in forging new careers and new science.

Jim Austin, Principal Investigator
Kate Travis, Editor
José Fernández, Community Manager
CTSciNet

Jim Austin is the Editor of Science Careers and the Principal Investigator on the CTSciNet project. Kate Travis is the editor of CTSciNet. José Fernández is CTSciNet's community manager.

10.1126/science.caredit.a0900123