Amanda Irish, MD, MPH, MS, DTMH, has a passion for emerging infectious diseases. A passion that stemmed from somewhat untraditional beginnings: as a young adult Irish read “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston, a nonfiction book about the origins of deadly viruses like Ebola and Marburg. Irish found herself transfixed by the biosafety lab doctors as they fought to contain dangerous infections “I imagined myself treating fatally infected villagers in a hospital tent one day while analyzing new virus strains the next” Irish shared.

DeShauna Jones, assistant director of engagement, integration, and implementation at the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science and CSSI researcher affiliate, recently published a study that sheds light on how a hospital program – aimed at improving outpatient antibiotic prescribing – functions in real-world settings.

In December 2024, the University of Iowa's Clinical Research Unit (CRU) underwent an FDA inspection as part of a clinical trial for the new medication, oral Fabhalta, aimed at treating C3 glomerulopathy (C3G). Due to the ultra-rare nature of C3G, the CRU saw patients from all over the United States and Canada and was the number one enroller for the clinical research trial globally.  “Due to our recruitment, our site was selected for and completed FDA Inspection,” Carla Nester, MD, MSA, FASN shared.

In January 2022, a 36-member work group from 17 institutions gathered to develop a maturity model for Clinical Trial Management Ecosystems (CTME). This effort was formed through the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Consortium’s Informatics Enterprise Committee. The committee aimed to clarify technical and organizational complexities in clinical trial operations, set benchmarks, and help leaders identify and address operational barriers. 

Since it was established in 2013, the NIH-funded NeuroBioBank (NBB) has served as a national resource for investigators to use post-mortem human brain tissue and related biospecimens. The NBB network distributes samples nationwide to members of the research community studying neurological, developmental, and psychiatric disorders. Now, with the support of the University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) Biomedical Informatics (BMI) team, the Iowa Neuropathology Resource Laboratory (INRL), the University of Iowa’s brain bank supported by the Carver College of Medicine, is part of the NBB network. 

Researchers with the University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) have launched a three-part project to improve screening and diagnosis of high blood pressure (hypertension) in postpartum women living in rural areas, with the long-term goal of improving treatment of this dangerous condition in this population.

Michelle Howard, PhD, has always been interested in pediatric cancers, but she credits her patients, not her profession, for pushing her and her research team toward the next innovative solution.

Fungal infections are a major contributor to illness and death among people with weakened immune systems. In these patients, fungal infections caused by molds or fungi are complicated to treat due to limited drug classes and antifungal drug resistance. Sarah Beattie, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics-infectious diseases, at University of Iowa Health Care, and her team, are using high-throughput drug screening against the most common disease-causing mold, Aspergillus fumigatus, to identify new treatments. Beattie and her team hope to improve treatments for fungal and invasive mold infections, moving toward a future in which treatments are safer and more effective for patients who urgently need them. 

In September, several of our ICTS leaders attended the CORES Annual Meeting hosted by The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Translational Research Institute (UAMS TRI) in Little Rock, Arkansas. This meeting was a gathering of representatives from each academic medical institution involved in the Consortium of Rural States (CORES), a collaborative research consortium working to improve health in rural communities with funding from the Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health.

In October of 2025, Heath Davis presented at the Annual Clinical and Translational Science Award Meeting. It was there that they were awarded Best Poster in Biomedical Informatics for their project on the "Iowa Health Data Resource: A Scalable Ecosystem for Advancing Translational science through Data, Workforce, and Infrastructure Innovation."