Hispanic Alliance for Clinical & Translational Research (Alliance) ABSTRACT Improving health care for the medically underserved, including our Hispanic population, afflicted by prevalent diseases, such as cancer, cardio-metabolic and infectious diseases, remains a major challenge. The current application is to support the development of Hispanic Alliance for Clinical & Translational Research in Puerto Rico (Alliance), which aims to build on the existing infrastructure of the Puerto Rico Clinical and Translational Research Consortium (PR-CTRC an RCMI-CTR) and the unique expertise on emerging infectious diseases and strategic positioning for the study of disaster-related conditions and their impact on Health. The Alliance expands the scope of our successful 8-year partnership by leveraging intellectual and physical resources of the three major academic health sciences centers on the Island: the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, the Universidad Central del Caribe, and the Ponce Medical School Foundation and key-collaborating institutions to support an integrated, island-wide program dedicated to the conduct clinical and translational research. The Alliance is founded on our hypothesis that research-driven improvements in health outcomes requires an integrated network of key stakeholders representing academia, government, community-based organizations and health care delivery systems working together in an interdisciplinary, multi-sectorial clinical- translational research model. The objective of the Alliance is to serve as the catalytic center to enhance the competitiveness of investigators to conduct research and obtain additional funding for clinical and translational research addressing highly prevalent diseases and those that affect the medically underserved in PR. The long-term goal of the Alliance is to transform clinical and translational research in Hispanic populations in the mainland and in Puerto Rico by promoting inter-disciplinary collaboration and leverage of resources to address diseases affecting Hispanic communities.