Ten years ago, when Gunnar Brolinson, DO, launched VCOM鈥檚 first-ever research retreat, he didn鈥檛 know that the retreat would continue to grow鈥攋ust as the College itself has. Yet, with the help of many hands across the last decade, the College recently hosted its 10th retreat, welcoming researchers from all four campuses, plus partners including government agencies, universities, and more.
In the beginning, Dr. Brolinson says he was just trying to get folks together to 鈥渇oster research partnerships amongst our schools and amongst our partners.鈥 He continues: 鈥淭he kind of grants that are successful on the national level are multidisciplinary and multi-institutional. Every year, we have several new collaborations that come out of people sitting down at the same table and chatting about their research ideas.鈥
This year鈥檚 retreat had more than 120 participants from all four SWAG视频campuses and 12 partner organizations, including the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); Pfizer; and Hughston Clinic in Columbus, Georgia; among others. The agenda featured a number of workshops and sessions with CME opportunities as well as talks on projects happening across the four campuses.
Matt Gevaert, PhD, VCOM鈥檚 new chief innovation officer spoke about the importance of innovating new treatments for cancer, but also the challenges of developing those treatments in terms of cost of high failure rates. Other sessions included how a mobile app is expanding the reach of mental health education, novel treatments for pain, integrating radiomics and musculoskeletal sonography, short 鈥淢edX鈥 talks on a variety of topics, and much more. In addition, there was ample time for social interaction and networking, helping to build the strong relationships that are so necessary to successful research collaborations.
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Research at VCOM
VCOM鈥檚 research department offers a variety of services, including help to identify funding sources and to match faculty and student research ideas to appropriate funding sources. The department also helps develop and manage large-scale, cross-campus project teams; assists with development and content editing; offers statistical consulting; and helps with technology transfer and licensing of intellectual property. The department not only supports faculty, but also students, residents and hospital partners.
VCOM鈥檚 commitment鈥攂oth philosophically and financially鈥攖o research has borne a lot of fruit over the years. In fiscal year 2024, there were 61 extramural proposals submitted by 36 different faculty members. The College鈥檚 extramural award success rate of 27% is a notable achievement. The national success rate for new grant proposals to the NIH, for example, is just over 21%. SWAG视频faculty currently have 15 proposals in the review stage at various organizations, with more than $9 million in potential funding.
Notable recent awards include:
- Nearly $4 million for a syndromic surveillance project with the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland
- Just over $2 million from the NIH to study the effect of cranial OMM on neuroinflammation
- A CATCH grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics to engage caregivers and children in a fun learning experience about the topic of anxiety
- A USDA Emergency Rural Health Care Grant to enable SWAG视频to deploy its mobile medical unit in weeklong medical mission experiences in rural Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties in South Carolina.
Many of the research projects that receive extramural funding start off as intramural projects. SWAG视频currently has 25 internally funded research projects and has a dedicated budget of $1.2 million annually to support such research. Seventy-two percent of these projects feature collaborators from partner institutions, and about 20% feature new investigators.
