Wright gift enables researchers to find answers in data
This story originally appeared in the MCV Foundation‘s Chronicle of Giving magazine. To read the full story and other articles about the life-saving effect of private gifts on the MCV Campus, click here.
Thanks to a $5 million gift last spring from one of Virginia Commonwealth University’s most generous supporters, biomedical informatics at the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research is poised to change the way research in our region can be conducted.
Ken Wright’s gift established a new 6,000-square-foot space where more than a dozen specialists serve the community’s and the university’s research needs. With the help of biomedical informatics, researchers can combine large amounts of data, such as imaging and genomic information, to find answers that lead to preventions or new treatments for diseases.
One example of how biomedical informatics can work is in screening for mild traumatic brain injury. Mild traumatic brain injury doesn’t have a very strong signal if a radiologist looks at an MRI alone, but combining the data from that MRI with other available data could be very beneficial. For example, a care team could search for the previously unnoticed and small mild traumatic brain injury signatures that appear every time in millions of data points beyond just MRIs.
F. Gerard “Gerry” Moeller, M.D., is the director of the Wright Center, associate vice president for clinical research and the inaugural C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Distinguished Chair in Clinical and Translational Research. He is using biomedical informatics to make an impact in his own research as he studies the effectiveness of initiating long-term recovery care for opioid overdose
survivors before those survivors ever leave the emergency department. By providing a medication earlier than current practices dictate, and by providing a same-day referral to a recovery facility, Dr. Moeller expects to reduce repeat overdoses and deaths.
The impact Mr. Wright’s giving has made on the research infrastructure at the university and the center bearing his name played a critical role in helping the center secure the largest National Institutes of Health grant in the university’s history. Announced in May 2018, the $21.5 million award will support the Wright Center in its mission to advance university and community research from basic laboratory science to treatments that improve human health.
“Last year’s grant and Mr. Wright’s most recent gift are going to dramatically enhance our biomedical informatics capabilities,” Dr. Moeller said. “We’re expanding into those areas where there are really massive amounts of data so we can look at diseases in ways we haven’t been able to do before.”
If you’re interested in learning about the tools available to support the Wright Center, patient care, research or education across the MCV Campus, contact Brian Thomas at brian.thomas@vcuhealth.org or 804-828-0067.
Categories Clinical Research, Data Science, Funding, Research