Celebrating the People Behind the Science: VCU’s Wright Center Marks Clinical Trials Day
Every year on May 20, the global research community observes International Clinical Trials Day, commemorating the date in 1747 when Scottish physician James Lind conducted what is widely recognized as the first controlled clinical trial — a systematic test of scurvy treatments aboard a British naval vessel. This year, the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright […]
The Wright Center Bids Fond Farewell to Amy Olex after 12 Years of Bioinformatics Innovation
After 12 years, 57 publications, and a hand in securing millions in research funding, Amy Olex, Ph.D., is leaving the Wright Center — but not VCU. Her bioinformatics pipelines powered landmark cancer research, her COVID data work shaped health policy across six countries, and her teaching, from the "Bioinformatics 101" seminar series to a graduate course still running today, brought hundreds of researchers into the fold. "I don't know of anywhere else where I would have been able to get all of that experience in one job," she says. "The Wright Center really put me in a unique position."
Wright Center Graduate Students Win Honors at VCU’s 20th Annual Women’s Health Research Day
Two graduate students from the VCU C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research were among the top honorees at the 20th Annual Women’s Health Research Day. The event, hosted by the VCU Institute for Women’s Health on April 28, 2026, centered on the theme “Midlife Matters: Integrating Menopause Research, Innovation, and […]
From Richmond to Philadelphia: how a Wright Center KL2 scholar became a national leader in periodontal research
How does a junior faculty member evolve into a national leader in periodontal research? For S. Esra Sahingur, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D., the catalyst was the Wright Center’s KL2 scholarship. Now the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Student Research at the University of Pennsylvania, Sahingur’s career trajectory—including nearly $4 million in NIH R01 funding—demonstrates how the Wright Center’s K12 Program serves as a powerful launchpad for clinician-scientists.
From A.I. to Wearables: VCU’s Wright Center awards four NIH-funded grants to accelerate medical research
RICHMOND, Va. — The C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research announced today the awarding of $100,000 to four interdisciplinary research projects at Virginia Commonwealth University. These $25,000 pilot awards are funded through the Wright Center’s $27 million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), […]
