VCOM View Vol 8-1

› › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › › ›  R e s e a r c h

for faculty. These include workshops and seminars on conducting research specific to VCOM’s mission such as educational research and community outreach research. Dr. Brolinson stated, “We aim to provide more formal research development programs to give faculty additional resources to strengthen research proposals, skills, peer review, and statistical support. The department’s goal is to facilitate interdisciplinary, interdepartmental, and inter-institutional collaborative research.” Additionally, the Research Department plans to continue close collaboration with their biomedical colleagues at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. This partnership has yielded over $5.3 million in extramural funding from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and United States Department of Defense (DOD). Growing their research partnerships with large, research-focused universities, such as Virginia Tech and Auburn University, is also an instrumental part of the five-year plan. The department also recently initiated the collaborative Center for One Health Research with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. This center will promote joint VCOM-VMCVM research programs relevant for humans and animals. The department’s goals include the development of a human genetics and osteopathic education program that will expand into research on early treatments for pediatric intellectual disorders. VCOM is actively

pursuing new partnerships that will advance genetic research while incorporating the principles and philosophy of osteopathic medicine. Such partnerships Such partnerships will create a clinical research pathway focused on osteopathic medicine and will enable us to be at the forefront of primary care osteopathic genomic research and education. With any endeavor, challenges arrive, specifically with the overall decline in funding. The majority of federal funding for OMM research comes from the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (formerly National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine). While NCCIH’s priorities for funding are a solid match for its osteopathic research, VCOM’s submissions are competing for funding with a number of other complementary therapies. “To meet those challenges as an osteopathic medical college, the Research Department will create stronger interdisciplinary teams, more innovative research ideas, and rely on continued support from VCOM leadership,” Dr. Brolinson said. In the next five years, VCOM’s Research Department looks to further their initiatives in all areas of research, becoming the top-ranked college for osteopathic medicine. The department has seen many successes in research and discovery since the College was founded, and with a new and innovative plan in place, this success will continue into the future. ◄

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