Surgical ICU Translational Research (STAR) Center

Mission

The STAR Center is a collaborative research center focusing on translational, clinical and outcomes research in the Surgical ICU at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The main focus of the STAR Center is to build lasting, collaborative projects based on key issues in critical care. The STAR Center mirrors the multidisciplinary clinical paradigm of the SICU, and facilitates clinical research projects from providers from the departments of surgery, anesthesia, emergency medicine, and medicine.

The vision of the group is to become an international leader in critical care research, personalized critical care medicine, and complement the clinical practice of the BWH ICUs through innovation and collaboration. The STAR group enables investigators to develop high quality, investigator initiated clinical trials & research, and perform industry sponsored trials by linking into local resources such as the CSPH (Center for Surgery and Public Health), BRI (Brigham Research Institute), the BWH CCI (Center for Clinical Investigation), the Harvard Catalyst Program, and nationally with the USCIIT Group (US Critical Illness and Injury Trials Group).

Areas of Interest

The STAR Center is heavily involved in clinical research in the following areas: Nosocomial infection, multi organ failure/sepsis, delirium, trauma, biomarkers research, outcomes based research, palliative and end of life care, quality improvement, education, and communication & family meetings.