CORES & RESEARCH RESOURCES
The Medical School Office of Research is committed to offering state-of-the-art technology and expertise through centralized cores and services that adapt to the ever-changing research landscape. Our objective is to enable research at the frontier by providing investigators access to the latest, high-end technologies and resources that are otherwise beyond the means of individual investigators.
The Biomedical Research Core Facilities offer state-of-the-art instruments, resources, and expertise to investigators at the U-M and beyond. Many of the biomedical cores are recognized nationally and internationally for enabling new research and developing novel techniques for their respective scientific fields.
The Animal Care & Use Program supports the University of Michigan community in its pursuit of impactful science to benefit both human and animal health by fostering a culture of excellence and compassion, responsible research conduct, and a shared commitment to upholding the highest animal welfare standards in all aspects of research, testing, and teaching. The Program operates according to the policies, standards, and guidelines set by the University, the State of Michigan, and the United States Government, which require a review of animal activities to ensure the humane treatment and judicious use of vertebrate animals. In addition to adhering to the standards governing laboratory animal care and use, our Animal Care & Use Program is also accredited by AAALAC International, a private non-profit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary program assessments and subsequent accreditation.
The Clinical Trials Support Office (CTSO) provides central infrastructure & strategic oversight to administratively service the seven trans-departmental Clinical Trial Support Units (CTSUs) that are aligned around common areas of research.
The Data Office for Clinical & Translational Research offers a menu of resources to assist with compliant, secure access to patient health data. They offer investigators easy access, through a self-serve tool or custom data pulls, to records from 4.0+ million patients.
The Central Biorepository, accredited by the College of American Pathologists, provides a world-class, standardized, safe, and monitored environment for the processing, storage, and distribution of high-quality biospecimens annotated with detailed clinical and laboratory data.
The MiChart Research Team supports Michigan Medicine's electronic health record system, MiChart. This team can assist investigators with setting up recruitment alerts, order set development, study and reporting needs, and other ways to maximize patient records for research.
RESEARCH CORES
Michigan Research Cores Across Campus
Cores are centralized facilities or labs that offer shared services, shared equipment, resources and expertise to investigators and their teams on a fee-for-service basis. There are over 100 different cores supporting research across the University of Michigan. For more information, view the full list of Research Cores.
Biomedical Research Core Facilities
The Biomedical Research Core Facilities (BRCF) at the Medical School offer state-of-the-art instruments, resources, and expertise to investigators at the U-M and beyond. Many of our biomedical cores are recognized nationally and internationally for enabling new research and developing novel techniques for their respective scientific fields. The Biomedical Research Core Facilities include:
- Advanced Genomics Core - the largest sequencing facility in the Midwest
- Bioinformatics Core - offers custom support in computational methods and algorithm development
- Biomedical Research Store - researchers can purchase thousands of products for their projects
- Epigenomics Core - prepares samples for analysis in epigenetic regulation
- Flow Cytometry Core - offers instrumentation, phenotypic analysis, cell sorting, and data analysis
- Metabolomics Core - offers state-of-the-art in-house metabolomics analysis tools
- Microscopy Core - offers high resolution microscopy, instruments, services, and data analysis
- Proteomics & Peptide Synthesis Core - provides custom sample prep and data interpretation
- Proteomics Resource Facility - state of the art instruments, technical expertise, advanced informatics support
- Transgenic Animal Model Core - internationally recognized expertise in rodent models
- Vector Core - in-house viral and plasmid stocks are ready the next business day
For more information, visit the BRCF website.
CLINICAL TRIALS SUPPORT UNITS
Clinical Trials Support Units
Clinical Trials Support Units (CTSUs) are business units that partner with investigators and their teams to ensure the timely and efficient activation and execution of clinical trials at Michigan Medicine.
The CTSUs allow investigators to focus on their research and patients, instead of administrative tasks. CTSUs use a standard set of work guides to harmonize elements across the clinical research enterprise while allowing for local flexibility to reflect the uniqueness of various types of research. CTSUs provide mandatory pre-/post-award support and optional study coordinator support.
When working with the Support Units, the six non-oncology units are referred to as M-CTSU and oncology as O-CTSU. Learn more about each Clinical Trials Support Unit.
Study Coordinator Pool
Principal Investigators can ultimately find a smoother process and save time by taking advantage of the Clinical Trials Support Office's study coordinator pool, which can provide investigators with team members who are already on staff and fully trained. All CTSU study coordinators are Good Clinical Practice (GCP) trained, and many coordinators have obtained or are working towards becoming either Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) or Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) certified. The study coordinator services span the entire scope of clinical trial study coordination. For more information, visit the Study Coordinator Support page.
Science Coordinator Services for Clinical Research
The Science Coordinator is an evolving role with roots in the science liaison role from industry. This service offers a great resource to study teams in clinical research: adjunct study team member, Angie Lyden, who can help with infrastructure logistics, and serve as a mentor and guide for early-career investigators and staff. Angie will work with study teams as an invested partner to navigate the new era of clinical research here at Michigan Medicine. For more information, visit the Study Coordinator Support page.
Michigan Clinical Research Unit
The Clinical Trials Support Office’s (CTSO) Michigan Clinical Research Unit (MCRU) provides clinical staff, resources, and infrastructure that are necessary to conduct adult and pediatric human clinical research protocols at the University of Michigan. The main performance site is located at Michigan Medicine within the Cardiovascular Center (CVC). The Domino's Farms extension is located in northeast Ann Arbor, approximately four miles from the hospital.
MCRU offers the following services to suit your clinical research needs:
- RN Nursing
- Clinical Support
- Laboratory Processing
- MCRU Space
- Mobile Clinical Research Team (MCRU2U)
PATIENT DATA & BIOSPECIMENS
Participant Recruitment
The Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR) offers many services related to participant recruitment. They can help you:
- determine whether their engaged participant registry, UMHealthResearch.org is an appropriate recruitment tool for your study and, if it is, teach you how to maximize the potential of UMHealthResearch.org for your study;
- and develop and review recruitment materials, identifying obstacles that may affect participant recruitment for your study through a participant recruitment and retention consultation.
To see all available resources, visit their website.
Access
The Data Office for Clinical & Translational Research and the Central Biorepository partner to help researchers gain secure access to thousands of available biospecimens and 15 years of patient clinical data. The intersection of these two services can help accelerate more targeted research, increasing your opportunities for collaboration, funding, and publication.
Data access through the Data Office for Clinical & Translational Research:
The Data Offices offers multiple self-serve tools, or you can request a custom data extract from their experienced programmers.
Biospecimen access through the Central Biorepository:
The Central Biorepository can connect you with thousands of biosamples for your research. For more information, visit their Get Access page, or view a sampling of what is available visit their Inventory page.
Consultations
Data Office for Clinical & Translational Research consultations provide information on available data tailored to your needs and a deep dive into all patient health data resources that are available. From support for your new funding proposal to informing your study design to crafting limited patient data searches, they offer consultations to help with all of your data requests.
Central Biorepository consultations connect you with experts who can help with guidance on consent, IRB applications, and distributions agreements, whether accessing or storing biosamples.
MiChart Research
The MiChart Research Team assists with all aspects of the electronic medical record including recruitment, ordering, and tip sheets. The Team can help you with setting up recruitment alerts, order set development, study and reporting needs, and other ways to maximize patient records for research.
There are two main types of MiChart-Research access: View Only access (which allows users to view virtually everything in MiChart) and Study Coordinator access (which allows for users to write to patients’ charts in the form of a research note and to place orders). The easiest way to request any of the services provided is to submit a Service Request via ServiceNow or contact Health Information Technology & Services (HITS) at 734-936-8000.
Biorepository Collection, Storage & Processing
The Central Biorepository serves as a central storage facility, point-of-research access, and administrative hub for research using biospecimens and data associated with or derived from them.
The repository is populated through partnerships with investigators, departments, centers, and institutes that are looking to create a resource for their own use, as well as sharing biomaterials and developing collaborative opportunities within the research enterprise at the University of Michigan and beyond.
Are you a clinician researcher considering options for storing your patient samples? Accredited by the College of American Pathologists, the Central Biorepository's expert staff can help you collect, manage, and protect your biospecimens using highly-automated processes and the highest-quality control. For more information, visit their Biobank page.
RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY
IT Support
The Health Information & Technology Services (HITS) department supports the IT needs of our research enterprise. In addition to oversight of enterprise-wide services such as MiChart, the IT team provides lab support, informatics, and high-end computing and data storage to help investigators leverage technology and data in ways that make meaningful contributions to research. For more information, visit the HITS website.
Research Computing Package
The Research Computing Package (RCP) offers computing services and data storage at no cost to Michigan Medicine faculty. RCP encourages faculty researchers to maximize the impact of their scholarly work through centralized, worry-free computing services and data storage. These services are offered in partnership with Advanced Research Computing – Technology Services (ARC-TS).
HITS Managed Computing Service: Flex
The HITS managed computing service offers options for your PC and Mac general computing devices that help ensure your computer has the most up to date security and software updates, and device management features. Visit the Imaged Workstations wiki page to see the features and determine which one is right for you.
Electronic Research Notebook
The Electronic Research Notebook (ERN) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) tool that provides a secure and compliant replacement for traditional paper lab notebooks. As modern research and lab data is largely digital and not well managed by paper notebooks, a software tool is a much better suited solution to the problem of managing modern research and laboratories.
SignNow: E-Signature Service
The SignNow pilot service at U-M supports the automation of processes for requesting and capturing signatures and information on documents. This service is used to support a diverse set of document workflows, some system-supported (automated) and some that had been manual. In addition, the U-M ITS e-signature service provides enabling support that includes single sign-on (SSO) access, SignNow service administration, contract and vendor management, and support and training. For more information, visit the SignNow page.
Questions?
Contact the Biomedical Research Core Facilities at brcf-umms@umich.edu or 734-647-4776
Contact the Clinical Trials Support Office at CTSOgroup@umich.edu
Contact the Central Biorepository at CBR.Requests@umich.edu or 734-647-8809
Contact the Data Office at DataOffice@umich.edu or 734-615-2100
Contact MiChart at MiChart-Questions@med.umich.edu
Contact Health Information and Technology Services at 734-936-8000
A full list of Office of Research staff is available in the Personnel Directory.