Diversifying Biorepositories to Promote Clinical and Translational Research

Awarded in 2025

Updated Oct 6, 2025

At a Glance

The goal of this project is to promote clinical and translational research to improve health in Wisconsin by expanding biomedical research. This project will expand infrastructure to engage a broad range of communities and populations in biospecimen research by combining community partnerships with expertise in community outreach, engagement, biospecimen science, biomarker development and bioinformatics.

Project Goals

This initiative aims to expand research participation and ensure that precision medicine advances benefit all communities. There are many intersecting health risk factors that are elevated in different patient populations, so this project hopes to engage participants in biospecimen donation and research by:

Expanding existing community outreach programs and health events
Performing patient-centric consenting, biospecimen collection and sample processing
Performing molecular testing on collected samples for specific disease conditions in at-risk patients

More Funded Projects

research icon: microscope and stethoscope

Collaborative Health Sciences Program

Awarded in 2025

Central venous catheters deliver life-saving treatments but can lead to serious bloodstream infections, including those caused by Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungal pathogen. This project will study how the stiffness of catheter surfaces impacts the body’s immune response and how well neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, and the body’s first responders for fighting infections, can detect and eliminate pathogens like C. auris. This innovative collaboration between experts in infectious disease and engineering experts could lead to the development of medical devices that better support the body’s natural defenses and reduce health care burdens in Wisconsin and beyond.