CLINICAL RESEARCH FUND
2024 IMPACT REPORT
The Woodson Fund is about all of us coming together to fight for a cause that is bigger than any one person alone. With your support, we have built an amazing team that is changing the lives of kids everywhere.
CHARLES woOdson
Since 2009, more than 9,500 donors have made a gift to the Charles Woodson Clinical Research Fund.
becAuSE Of you
Physicians and scientists at University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital are making a difference for children everywhere.
Your support of the Charles Woodson Clinical Research Fund is helping to advance important research that is moving pediatric medicine closer to better answers, improved treatments, and cures for childhood diseases and conditions like cancer, congenital heart defects, diabetes, sickle cell disease, and many others.
The Woodson Fund was established in 2009 by U-M legend and pro football hall-of-famer Charles Woodson because he wanted the Little Victors at Mott to know they had the best team of researchers, caregivers, volunteers, and community members fighting alongside them to help them get better.
The Woodson Fund has since grown into a successful and influential driver of innovative, leading-edge research. The fund has supported early career researchers who have turned bold ideas into new technologies or better approaches to care. It has enabled collaboration across diverse fields by building up crucial lab services and infrastructure. It continues to support the most talented scientists, ensuring they have the resources they need to pursue their research at U-M. And it has grown an endowment that will fund future generations of physicians and scientists conducting lifesaving pediatric research.
The inspiring vision, promising work, and lasting impact of the Woodson Fund are only possible because of donors like you. Your support is helping to share more hope and a better quality of life with the children and families who need it most. Thank you for all you do.
Donna Martin, M.D., Ph.D. Ravitz Foundation Endowed Professor of Pediatrics Chair, Department of Pediatrics Professor of Pediatrics and of Human Genetics Michigan Medicine
Yay,team!
Since being established in 2009, the Woodson Fund has helped develop and advance many impactful research studies while building a supportive environment that enables greater collaboration.
By growing an endowment fund, supporting key research infrastructure, and attracting and keeping top researchers at U-M, the Woodson Fund has created a foundation that will improve the lives of children at Mott and beyond for years to come. The Woodson Fund directs resources to:
Research project seed funding: Recruitment and retention for top researchers: Woodson Lab infrastructure: Research endowment:
$2.6M $1.6M $1.1M $6.5M
Thanks to the support and momentum from the Woodson Fund, U-M is now ranked 12th in pediatric research funding received from the National Institutes of Health, up from 23rd in 2020.
Gabe Owens, M.D., Ph.D., Woodson Fund recipient and clinical professor of pediatrics in the U-M Division of Pediatric Cardiology
buiLdIng A woRLd-cLASs ReseARch fRAmEwORk
The Woodson Fund supports a clinical research laboratory within steps of C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, providing access to state-of-the-art equipment and resources that are essential for cutting-edge research.
Temporary freezer storage available in the Woodson Lab optimizes the handling of clinical samples. A team of experienced statisticians support pediatric researchers in designing data-driven experiments and analyzing complex data sets. And biostatistical support helps to leverage the time and expertise of pediatric researchers as they advance projects to find better outcomes for children.
These shared resources create a collaborative environment and ensure that researchers have the tools they need to concentrate on their work without spending time or grant dollars to secure these services.
wOodSOn AwARds SEed fundIng uPdATES
Our Woodson Fund award was instrumental in obtaining the grant and doing the work. For the first time, ASCEND will help answer the question of what life will look like for children after ECMO support and will address the best time to start ECMO.
RyAn BARbARo, m.d.,
m.S.
Finding better outcomes for children with serious lung injury and disease
Developed at U-M, the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine has saved the lives of countless children and infants with serious lung issues. ECMO is a form of life support that moves blood through the body, doing the work of the heart and lungs for a temporary period of time.
While ECMO has given many young children a second chance at life, U-M’s Ryan Barbaro, M.D., M.S., wants to learn more about how children recover after being placed on ECMO and what their quality of life is like in the months after leaving the hospital.
Dr. Barbaro’s ASCEND study is asking families about their child’s abilities and quality of life prior to being hospitalized, at discharge from the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), and at quarterly intervals in the year after being discharged from the PICU.
Assessing quality oF cAre for children with sickle cell anemiA
Children with sickle cell anemia are over 100 times more likely to have a stroke than kids without the condition. Most commonly, these children have “silent strokes” that do not show outward physical signs but may cause problems in thinking, learning, and decision making. Silent strokes are also a risk factor for future strokes.
National guidelines recommend that children with sickle cell anemia receive annual transcranial doppler (TCD) screenings to assess stroke risk. Research by Sarah Reeves, Ph.D., MPH, examined the rate of TCD screenings among privately insured children with sickle cell anemia.
Her work also estimated out-of-pocket spending for this crucial test and looked at rates of TCD screening for patients in high deductible health plans to determine if costs may be preventing children from receiving this necessary care.
Among privately insured children with sickle cell anemia, fewer than half received annual TCD screening. Out-of-pocket spending for families exceeded $100 for 27% of TCD screens. The results of this work — made possible by Woodson Fund seed support — will drive additional studies to determine what can be done to make TCD screenings and necessary care more accessible to all children with sickle cell anemia.
Working to improve access to high-quality, aFfordable cAre for all
Approximately one-third of caregivers of a child with critical illness have debt at the time of their child’s hospitalization. One in five of these families have medical debt in collections, and one in three have a low credit score. The amount of debt is substantial, as those with debt owe an average of $3,000. This may lead to financial distress, which could be worsened by hospitalization costs themselves.
Occurrences of delinquent debt or low credit were much more common after a child was hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).
With support from the Charles Woodson Clinical Research Fund, Erin Carlton, M.D., M. Sc., and Nora Becker, M.D., Ph.D., founded the Michigan Health Economics and Affordability Lab (M-HEAL). The lab aims to conduct quality improvement work and research that helps to inform quality improvement initiatives and health policies that improve care affordability, economic stability, and a patient’s overall health.
The Woodson Fund helped M-HEAL to conduct preliminary analyses that will be used to inform the development of quality improvement initiatives in Michigan and to apply for additional funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Support from the Woodson Fund allowed us to answer policy relevant questions regarding barriers to preventive services for high risk children with sickle cell anemia. We could make a focused impact to get answers quickly.
sARAH
The work I am doing with M-HEAL would not be possible without the Charles Woodson Fund. No parent should have to worry about how they are going to pay for the health care their child needs, especially at a time of significant stress like a hospitalization. I am so grateful for the support of the Charles Woodson Fund to take the steps forward in making this a reality.
Ph.d., MPH
eRIn CARlTOn, m.d.
ReEvES,
meAsuring quality oF life for young pAtients with kidney disease
For patients with focal segmental glomerular sclerosis (FSGS), a rare kidney disease, there are days when everything is under control and they feel OK. But there are days when the disease is active and causes swelling, fatigue, headache, shortness of breath, and other symptoms.
Jonathan Troost, Ph.D., is analyzing FSGS patient outcomes to see how care teams could provide them a better quality of life. Current FSGS therapies do not consistently work for all patients and can have negative side effects. Dr. Troost and a team of collaborators want to learn how certain treatments affect a patient’s overall wellness and how physicians can better respond to the side effects.
Dr. Troost’s team found that patient questionnaires were less effective in measuring outcomes than biological markers. For example, when children with FSGS had edema — swelling caused by fluid trapped in the body’s tissues — they more frequently had mobility issues, depression, and anxiety. And kids with FSGS who made more frequent trips to the emergency room showed more signs of fatigue.
This study suggests that developing diseasespecific instruments can better detect changes in a patient’s quality of life and could help inform future clinical trials for FSGS therapies.
Other grants that fund research don’t typically support studies like this. The Woodson Fund let us do some analysis on this topic so that we can better understand the relationship between disease activity, quality of life, and longterm outcomes.
jonAThAn TROosT, PH.d.
RecRuITIng And ReTAining leAdERs in MedIcIne
The Woodson Fund has helped to attract highly sought after leaders in pediatric specialties to U-M while also advancing the promising careers of many talented U-M faculty members. Through seed funding for early-stage research, data analysis to move projects forward, and other dynamic resources, the Woodson Fund is inspiring incredible achievement and growth.
Kanakadurga Singer, M.D., joined the U-M Department of Pediatrics as a pediatric endocrinologist in 2012, seeing patients with obesity and diabetes, and focusing her research on growing knowledge of these diseases and their long-term impacts.
She received her first Woodson Fund award in 2015 and added three more Woodson Fund awards in the years that followed. This support enabled her to pursue bold ideas, collaborate with other U-M scientists, and advance promising research.
Dr. Singer is now the Valerie Castle Opipari, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and is a leader in her field of expertise. She is also a faculty ally in the Graduate Program in Immunology and assistant dean for tenure track faculty at the U-M Medical School, where she mentors learners and early career researchers while promoting a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition to support from the Woodson Fund, Dr. Singer has been awarded grants from the American Heart Association, the Taubman Emerging Scholars Program at U-M, and the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Jessica Turnier, M.D., is a pediatric rheumatologist and physician-scientist at U-M. She received a five-year startup grant from the Woodson Fund in 2020, which was instrumental in recruiting her to Ann Arbor to launch her career in studying rheumatologic diseases in children.
Dr. Turnier’s research focuses on improving clinical care for children with lupus and myositis, a disease that causes the immune system to attack the muscles. She is studying skin disease in myositis and lupus patients to identify disease mechanisms, biomarkers, and treatment targets.
In 2023, Dr. Turnier also received a Charles Woodson Collaborative Research Award, making it possible for her to develop research on endothelial cell dysregulation in juvenile myositis (JM). Given the initial progress and excitement around this work, as well as the potential benefits for young patients, Dr. Turnier was awarded a two-year grant proposal from the Cure JM Foundation to further this research. She has also received extramural funding from the Rheumatology Research Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance, and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
Dr. Turnier has also opened a new lab in the Autoimmunity Research Community at the U-M North Campus Research Complex and developed a multidisciplinary juvenile myositis clinic to give patients greater access to state-of-the-art clinical care and better integrate research into care practices.
The Woodson Fund has enabled physicians, scientists, and trainees to take their research to new heights. Woodson Fund awards have supported more than 132 researchers working on 98 projects across 26 pediatric care specialties. Woodson Fund researchers have published more than 190 manuscripts, created more than 200 abstracts, and worked with more thn 110 trainees. Woodson Fund researchers have secured nearly $51 million in additional funding for their projects from outside sources.
ouTcoMes Of InvESTmEnT
Woodson Fund projects have led to the development of tech devices, media apps, websites, clinical trial protocols, and other services that are improving care for children and families.
Clinical trial protocols to share with participating institutions, ensuring consistency and adherence across sites (Sung Won Choi, M.D.)
DReflect, a diary tool for mobile data collection by teens with diabetes (Joyce Lee, M.D., MPH)
Nightscout Data Commons, a tool to support collection of health and lifestyle data from patients with Type 1 diabetes (Joyce Lee, M.D., MPH)
iSTART mobile app, a technology aiding medication adherence in pediatric transplant recipients (Emily Fredericks, Ph.D.)
Because of you, the Charles Woodson Clinical Research Fund at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital continues to drive the groundbreaking research that will change lives. Your generosity is helping to drive improved treatments, better answers, and more hopeful outcomes that children and families are counting on.
To support the Woodson Fund, contact Scotty Passink at 734-320-2655 or spassink@umich.edu or Jennifer Polan at 734-763-6092 or hurandjl@umich.edu
michiganmedicine.org/giving
©2024 University of Michigan Board of Regents: Jordan B. Acker, Michael J. Behm, Mark J. Bernstein, Paul W. Brown, Sarah Hubbard, Denise Ilitch, Ron Weiser, Katherine E. White, Santa J. Ono (ex officio)