Our Mission and Strategic Plan
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital is dedicated to enhancing the health of children by engaging in high-quality, cutting-edge research according to the highest scientific and ethical standards.
The Mission of Nationwide Children's Hospital
Research is an integral part of the overall Nationwide Children's mission, which has guided Nationwide Children's into a position as one of America’s finest healthcare facilities for children.
Research Strategic Plan
Clinical and research strategies come together to enhance our impact on pediatric care.
Nationwide Children's Hospital aggressively supports discovery of new knowledge focused on the health and welfare of children. Comprehensive integration of our pre-eminent clinical and research programs is the foundation of the Nationwide Children's strategic plan.
Looking to the future, a significant emphasis is being placed on our genomic and advanced informatics capabilities, leading to answers to the key questions regarding health and disease, not only for an individual patient, but ultimately for an entire population.
- Biostatistics: Infrastructure for study design, database design, data retrieval and archiving - essential competencies for clinical, translational and health services research
- Bioinformatics: Capacity for data management, programming and warehousing for clinical and translational research
- Biobanking: Biospecimen banking including blood, DNA, cells, and biopsies - the Biopathology Center at Nationwide Children's serves as the only pediatric repository for pediatric solid tumors and is one of only two repositories for leukemia samples in the United States, Canada and Australia
- Technology Commercialization: Incentives for new technology development; patents licensing, royalty and company startups
- Clinical Research Support: Facility expansion and access to streamlined coordination of services necessary to initiate clinical research projects, regardless of funding source
- State-of-the-Art Shared Resources: On-site basic, clinical and general core services that offer the latest resources for cutting-edge research support at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's
- Cardiovascular Science: The mission of the Center for Cardiovascular Research is to conduct innovative, mechanism-based research leading to improved therapies and outcomes for pediatric cardiovascular diseases, to foster preventive strategies and promote cardiovascular health in adults.
- Cancer Biology and Experimental Therapeutics: The mission of the Center for Childhood Cancer is to expand the understanding of the pathogenesis of childhood cancer and to improve therapies for diagnosis and treatment.
- Microbial Pathogenesis, Vaccines and Immunity: The goal of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis is to identify virulence mechanisms and define host response patterns with the overall objective of elucidating a detailed description of the structure, function and control of biological systems in health and disease, utilizing molecular and cellular, as well as genomic and proteomic, approaches. The Center for Vaccines and Immunity has a single purpose: to improve the health of children through fundamental and applied research leading to a new generation of safe, protective vaccines against infection, cancer and allergy.
- Gastrointestinal Disease: From behavioral-related motility problems to complex gastrointestinal disorders, pediatric GI research is a priority at Nationwide Children's - clinicians and scientists currently receive more than $5 million annually in external funding to perform gastrointestinal research.
- Neuroscience: From studies at the molecular level to the behavioral level, Neurosciences faculty members are investigating how neurological and neuromuscular disorders and conditions develop, to work toward new treatment and prevention options, including the first human gene therapy trial for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
- Prematurity: The Center for Perinatal Research has a unique, integrative approach to prematurity research that extends before and after birth. In close collaboration with the Section of Neonatology, the mission of faculty in the Center for Perinatal Research is to conduct innovative basic, translational and clinical research focused on prevention of preterm birth and improvement of prematurity-related outcomes.
- Biobehavioral Health: The Center for Biobehavioral Health seeks to improve the health and health care of children, adolescents, and their families through behavioral research on vulnerable individuals and populations, using a multidisciplinary and biopsychosocial approach.
Research Stats and Fast Facts
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital is one of the fastest growing pediatric research centers in the United States. Among free-standing children’s hospitals, Nationwide Children's currently ranks in the top ten based on NIH funding.
In 2015, The Research Institute faculty and staff included:
- 66 research fellows
- 41 graduate students
- 1121 employees
- 184 principal investigators*
* Includes faculty from The Research Institute and faculty from Nationwide Children's Hospital with $50,000 or more in research funding support.
Also in 2015:
- Publications from Nationwide Children's research faculty totaled 823
- 62 patents were filed
- 10 patents were issued
- Number of inventions totaled 76