Dr. Etta Pisano wants the second year of the N.C. Translational and Clinical Sciences (TraCS) Institute to be even more dynamic and successful than the first year was. So while she’s quite happy to tick off what’s been accomplished, she remains eager to get the second year rolling as quickly as possible.

“We’ve created an institute that now serves a lot of faculty,” said Pisano, the principal investigator for the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) and the director of the N.C. TraCS Institute . “We’ve given out...