From the Director: A Personal Appeal Regarding NIH Open Access Compliance
I am making a personal appeal to every researcher in our community to pay close attention to the NIH’s new open access policy. This is especially critical for Principal Investigators and first authors. The stakes for our center are incredibly high: if even one paper that cites our Wright Center NIH grants is out of […]
Moving Beyond the Checklist: A New Roadmap for Evaluating the Heart of Team Science
Dr. Debbie DiazGranados, Director of Evaluation and Team Science at VCU’s Wright Center published a new article tackling the puzzle of evaluating teams, whos work depends on "soft" competencies, such as communication, leadership, and collaborative problem-solving, and which are notoriously difficult to measure. Her article, co-authored with colleagues at two other institutions, appeared in the American Journal of Evaluation (December 2025).
VCU analysis of millions of records reveals telehealth surge, persistent barriers to access
To understand the impact of the digital divide on modern healthcare, the VCU Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research supported a massive analysis of 21 million primary care visits. Led by Jong Hyung Lee, Ph.D., and Alex Krist, M.D., the study reveals that while telehealth use remains significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, persistent barriers like poverty and broadband access continue to limit its reach. The timing of the study is critical as emergency authorizations that allow Medicare to cover a broad range of telehealth services could expire in days.
Stop Searching, Start Discovering: VCU Wright Center Unleashes Overton,Your New Power Tool for Unfindable Research Impact!
Good news for the VCU community: The VCU Wright Center is pleased to announce the launch of our institutional license for Overton, the world’s largest searchable database of policy and grey literature. This powerful resource is available to anyone with a vcu.edu or vcuhealth.org email address. For every researcher and administrator focused on demonstrating the […]
Transplantation, HIV infection and immunosuppression: Wright Center scientists contribute to studies using national COVID-19 data
Organ transplant recipients and people living with HIV are more likely to experience adverse effects after contracting COVID-19. And kidney and heart transplant recipients are at highest risk. Those are just some of the conclusions coming from an international team of researchers that includes Virginia Commonwealth University data scientists. Amy Olex, M.S., and Evan French […]
VCU researchers develop COVID-19 testing method that is both accurate and fast
You wake up one morning with a fever and a cough. Where can you get a rapid, accurate COVID-19 test? The answer has plagued many people in the U.S., where the FDA has been slow to approve at-home, rapid tests, many of which suffer from high false-negative rates. And the more-accurate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) […]
Ten years later: How the KL2 Program at the Wright Center trained a generation of research leaders
More than a decade ago, the VCU Wright Center inaugurated its first class of KL2 Scholars, a cohort of talented junior faculty members looking to advance the world’s knowledge of health through clinical and translational research. Since then, 14 researchers have enjoyed the mentorship, protected research time and general support of their research careers that […]
Little-known resources, public access policy and data management: Eight questions with VCU Librarian Nina Exner
Nina Exner, Ph.D., calls her job a ‘funny profession.’ Being a research data librarian means different things at different institutions, but for Exner it translates largely into data management. She helps VCU researchers comply – appropriately and ethically – with the data management plans required by the government or foundations who give them grants. The […]
Wright Center researchers co-author winning N3C poster on organ transplants and COVID-19
The Wright Center’s Amy Olex, M.S., and Evan French were co-authors on a poster that won top honors at a recent conference. The senior bioinformatics specialist and informatics system analyst, respectively, helped produce Covid-19 In Solid Organ Transplantation (SOT): Results of The National Covid Cohort Collaborative (N3C). The poster was accepted to the Cutting Edge of Transplantation […]
Highlighting the Work of Richmond’s Community Health Workers and Advocates
The health of our community plays a key role in our personal well-being, which is why the work that community health workers and advocates do is so impactful. Public health warriors are on the front lines serving Richmond City’s vulnerable populations by advocating and educating their communities about their health and helping them navigate to […]
