Programs and Activities Highlights
- Closeout Site Visit to Wake Forest University
ORIP staff conducted a virtual closeout site visit on January 21, 2026, to Wake Forest University’s newly constructed Preclinical Imaging and Irradiation (PRIMIR) facility, supported by NIH construction grant C06OD030099. The $7.3 million award funded construction of a 10,287-gross-square-foot, state-of-the-art primate research building at the university’s Clarkson Campus, with total project costs of $15.8 million, including $8.5 million in institutional support. The facility consolidates imaging and irradiation capabilities for nonhuman primates that previously required transportation across the county, significantly reducing stress to the test subjects and improving research reproducibility. The PRIMIR facility features three specialized suites housing a Varian TrueBeam LINAC, Siemens Skyra 3 Tesla MRI, and GE Discovery 64-Slice PET/CT scanner, along with animal biosafety level 2–compliant animal housing, radioisotope-rated infrastructure, and energy-efficient design elements. The facility received its certificate of occupancy in May 2025 and completed its first study in July 2025. It now supports six major research programs, two national NIH-funded primate resources, and two training programs (T32 and T35), serving principal investigators funded by multiple NIH institutes and the U.S. Department of Defense with research on advancing radiation effects, Alzheimer’s disease, aging, substance use, neuro-oncology, and diabetes/metabolic disease studies.
- Closeout Site Visit to Columbia University Health Sciences
On January 22, 2026, ORIP staff conducted a virtual closeout site visit to Columbia University Health Sciences’ newly constructed Biobank Resource for Investigating Disease, Genes, and Environment (BRIDGE) Biobanking Facility. Supported by NIH construction grant C06OD030152, the $8 million award funded the creation of a 9,635-square-foot centralized biobanking facility, consolidating fragmented biospecimen storage, aging freezers, and processing activities previously dispersed across campus. The facility features the Azenta BioStore II automated freezer system, with capacity for storing 6 million biospecimens—37% more than originally proposed—at −80°C, along with robust engineering safeguards, including redundant cooling and power systems, waterless fire suppression, emergency generator backup, and dedicated liquid nitrogen backup. Infrastructure supports future expansion to accommodate more than 12 million samples. The facility was commissioned in spring 2025 and has already loaded more than 37,000 biospecimens and migrated more than 1.3 million samples into the OpenSpecimen laboratory information management system, which integrates with electronic health records. The centralized resource now supports 168 studies across the institution, processing blood, serum, plasma, DNA/RNA, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, cerebrospinal fluid, bone marrow, and urine samples with standardized automated workflows. This transformative infrastructure converts fragmented, siloed collections into a scalable, institution-wide resource that accelerates ethically conducted biomedical discovery in Alzheimer’s disease, immunity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and precision medicine while reducing individual laboratory infrastructure burdens and improving energy efficiency.
- Fiscal Year 2025 C06 Post-Award Webinar
On November 20, 2025, ORIP held an informational webinar to kick off fiscal year 2025 NIH C06 construction projects. More than 75 participants from all 14 grantee institutions attended, representing various project roles, including principal investigators, signing officials, project managers, and architect/engineering team members. The webinar covered such key topics as project and budget timelines, design requirements, technical review processes, environmental policy, NIH grant compliance, and reporting requirements throughout the grant period and 10-year duration of Federal Interest following project completion. ORIP’s Division of Construction and Instruments supports programs that fund the construction, renovation, and modernization of research space by issuing notices of funding opportunities when congressional appropriations are available. The overall objective of these programs is to provide modernized physical infrastructure that meets up-to-date engineering requirements to conduct cutting-edge NIH-funded biomedical research.
- Closeout Site Visit to the University of Miami
On December 18, 2025, ORIP staff conducted a virtual site visit to the University of Miami (UM) Miller School of Medicine’s centralized biospecimen repository facility, supported by NIH grant C06OD030170. Opened in January 2025, this facility has expanded storage capacity from 500,000 to 5 million specimens, featuring automated −80°C modular storage with triple-redundant backup systems and continuous monitoring to ensure sample integrity. Advanced capabilities include biological safety cabinets, cryogenic storage, and dedicated clinical trials infrastructure supporting NIH-funded research, multisite collaborations, and precision medicine initiatives with electronic medical record integration. The facility has managed 1.2 million samples across 222 studies, serving 68 principal investigators from 17 UM departments and 11 external partners. This infrastructure strengthens UM’s competitiveness for NIH funding and faculty recruitment while advancing the UM Precision Medicine Initiative (UPROMISE) in Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases research, with regional impact on the broad biomedical research field.
- Closeout Site Visit to the University of Louisville
On January 16, 2026, ORIP staff conducted a virtual closeout site visit to the University of Louisville’s newly renovated centralized vivarium, supported by NIH construction grant C06OD030129. The $8 million award funded the transformation of the ninth floor of the A-Tower Research Building into a modern, centralized vivarium and research facility. The project consolidated animal housing previously dispersed across nine A-Tower floors and a dental school space, significantly improving operational efficiency and research workflows. The new facility features a highly flexible design with multipurpose rooms that can function as housing or procedural space. Key enhancements include improved barrier-level biosecurity, isolation of the vivarium from public areas, animal biosafety level 2 procedure space, specialized inhalation rooms, and expanded zebrafish housing capacity. Occupancy of the facility began on December 12, 2024, and the facility now supports 29 investigators from 12 departments and four centers with more than $34 million in NIH funding, positioning the institution for future research growth.
Read more in the archive.
ORIP-Supported Research Highlights
- Metabolomic Profiling and Characterization of a Novel 3D Culture System for Studying Chondrocyte Mechanotransduction
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative joint disease that affects more than 37% of people over age 60. The pericellular matrix (PCM), the microenvironment that directly surrounds each cartilage cell, plays an important role in mechanotransduction. This process allows cells to sense changes in outside physical forces and convert them into electrical signals and cartilage functions. Using a novel 3D culture system equipped with cyclical compression and loading stimulation to mimic physiological conditions, researchers studied human and bovine cartilage cell mechanotransduction under different cell culture conditions. Metabolomic profiling—a way of observing all chemical changes within a cell that produces compounds and energy for biological processes—showed unique changes and strong PCM development as indicated by the production of both collagens VI and II, suggesting the 3D culture system replicates the native PCM and physiological stiffness of cartilage. By providing a physiologically relevant 3D model, future studies can look into OA pathways, cartilage tissue engineering, and novel therapies.
- Deep Learning Approaches for Classifying Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Inertial Measurement Unit Hand Tracking Data: Comparative Study
Studies show that 50% to 88% of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have differences in movement control. Researchers used an inertial measurement unit (IMU), an electronic device that measures aspects of the body, to track arm movements in 41 children (both sexes) with and without an ASD diagnosis during a hand–eye coordination task. The IMU data were used in multiple deep learning models, and the best model was retrained and reevaluated, resulting in an accuracy of 91.87% and an F1-score (a performance metric for deep learning models) of 93.66%. The study showed that different physical movement patterns in children with ASD can be identified by analyzing hand–eye coordination skills and suggested that small-scale deep learning models have the potential to help diagnose ASD.
- Development and Validation of an Ultra–High Performance Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry Method for Quantifying Lenacapavir Plasma Concentrations: Application to Therapeutic Monitoring
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is used to treat patients with HIV. Lenacapavir is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved ART. Following initial doses of lenacapavir taken orally and injected beneath the skin, the patient gives themselves a dose by injection once every 6 months. With this long-acting and infrequent dosing, patients may need to be monitored to ensure that proper drug levels are achieved in the body to prevent viral mutations that could cause drug resistance. Researchers developed a novel mass spectrometry (an analytical chemistry instrument to measure molecules in a sample) method to test the effectiveness of ART by measuring lenacapavir levels in human plasma. The researchers validated the new method using a large range of clinically relevant doses. The results showed that the method is precise and consistent. This study suggests that the method can monitor lenacapavir levels in human plasma and evaluate ART effectiveness in clinical settings.
- Cryo-EM Structures of HBV Capsids from Human Cells at Near-Atomic Resolution
More than 800,000 deaths per year are caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV)–induced liver inflammation, cirrhosis (scarring liver), and hepatocellular carcinoma. Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a microscope technique that images samples cooled to very low temperatures. Using cryo-EM, researchers determined the structure of HBV capsids (a protein shell that surrounds and protects the virus) purified from human cells. Along with computer simulations and analyses, results highlighted the dynamic regulation of HBV capsid structure and how it contributes to virion (an infectious form of virus) secretion, viral assembly, and envelopment. This could be a potential mechanism for developing HBV-specific antiviral drugs for disease treatment.
- Targeting FSP1 Triggers Ferroptosis in Lung Cancer
Growing evidence shows that cancer cells are highly sensitive to lipid peroxidation (a chemical process that degrades lipids in cell membranes). Ferroptosis is a form of cell death that relies on iron and lipid peroxidation, and two proteins known to suppress ferroptosis are GPX4 and FSP1. In this study, researchers used 8- to 12-week-old genetically engineered mouse models for lung cancer (both sexes used) and selectively deleted these two proteins. Results showed that deleting GPX4 and FSP1 triggered lipid peroxidation and significantly inhibited lung adenocarcinoma tumor development. FSP1 was essential for protecting tumors from ferroptosis in vivo (within an organism) but not in vitro (outside of an organism), highlighting the utility of the mouse models to mimic the physiological conditions of patients. FSP1 expression correlated with disease progression and reduced survival in lung adenocarcinoma patients, unlike GPX4. Drug inhibition of FSP1 showed substantial therapeutic efficacy in preclinical models. These findings establish ferroptosis as a barrier to tumor development and identify FSP1 inhibition as a promising novel therapy for lung cancer patients.
Read more in the archive.
