U-M Weil Institute invests $2M in the development of new preclinical models of critical illness and injury
The result of a major multi-departmental and multi-school collaboration, the investment will support the Weil Institute’s unique preclinical critical care lab to advance translational research in critical care over the next 5 years.
Image credit: Shutterstock
ANN ARBOR —The Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation plans to invest $2 million over the next 5 years to support the institute’s continued development of pre-clinical models of critical illness and injury. This investment has been made possible by contributions from the Medical School, College of Engineering, Endowment for the Basic Sciences, and Medical School Departments of Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics and Neurosurgery.
"This investment is going to fill critical translation gaps and benefit all scientists at the University of Michigan interested in translating laboratory discoveries to improve care for the critically ill and injured."
Robert Neumar, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine
Conditions requiring critical care, such as sepsis and traumatic brain injury, are difficult to study in humans due to their unpredictability and the absence of translatable pre-clinical models that accurately recreate the evolution of the body’s responses to these conditions. Since its establishment in 2014, the Weil Institute has made major advancements in the development of such models that continue to be used to develop and test new technologies both at the University and around the globe. Now, this latest investment will enable the simultaneous development and refinement of multiple long-term outcome models to help multidisciplinary research teams translate their discoveries. These include models of sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, cardiac arrest, traumatic brain injury, and polytrauma.
“This investment will significantly enhance our convergence team science capability to not only better understand the complex pathophysiology of these disease states but also take this knowledge to develop the next generation of diagnostics, devices, therapeutics, and digital health innovations that can transform the care of and improve outcomes in our patients,” said Dr. Kevin Ward, Weil Institute Executive Director and U-M Professor of Emergency Medicine. “We further anticipate this investment will strengthen our ability to collaborate with industry as well as to develop impactful clinical trials.”
Dr. Robert Neumar, Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, spoke on how the investment at Weil will also support investigators across the U-M community. “It’s going to fill critical translation gaps and benefit all scientists at the University of Michigan interested in translating laboratory discoveries to improve care for the critically ill and injured,” Neumar said.
The Weil Institute’s mission is to transform critical care through innovation, integration, and entrepreneurship. The new investment will help fuel the institute’s boundless approach to bringing research to the bedside and further pave the way for innovations poised to reshape how we care for our sickest patients.
---
About the Weil Institute, formerly MCIRCC
The team at the Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation (formerly the Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care) is dedicated to pushing the leading edge of research to develop new technologies and novel therapies for the most critically ill and injured patients. Through a unique formula of innovation, integration and entrepreneurship that was first imagined by Weil, their multi-disciplinary teams of health providers, basic scientists, engineers, data scientists, commercialization coaches, donors and industry partners are taking a boundless approach to re-imagining every aspect of critical care medicine. For more information, visit weilinstitute.med.umich.edu.