Grant to fund one-health fellowships, research

Wisconsin researchers will use a $3 million federal grant to fund research fellowships for work across health disciplines.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine will use the money from the National Institutes of Health for a five-year effort to bring physicians and veterinarians together in support of human and animal health, according to a university announcement. Starting in fall 2020, the grant will fund two-year research fellowships for veterinarians who have completed a residency. Those fellowships will be available at 15 veterinary colleges.

The grants also will fund research training for early-career veterinary faculty and summits for researchers who are studying similar diseases in human and veterinary medicine. Expected topics include skin allergies, cancer-related pain, osteoarthritis, and epilepsy.

Dr. Lauren Trepanier, principal researcher on the Translational Research Workforce Training Grant, said in the announcement that the program will add veterinary specialists to teams that are researching human diseases and advancing treatments. The grant also will help graduate veterinarians develop into clinician-scientists who can help share knowledge.

"Veterinarians often understand similarities and differences between animal and human diseases because we go to the human medical literature all the time on the clinic floor," she said in the announcement. "If we're treating a disease in an animal and there's no veterinary study, we look at a human study.

"What we want physicians to do is look to veterinary medicine and see that there may be a disease that's just like the disease in humans."

Dr. Trepanier also is a professor and assistant dean for clinical and translational research. Through the grant, she will coordinate with UW-Madison's School of Pharmacy and partners at the University of California-Davis, University of Florida, University of Minnesota, and Clinical and Translational Science Award One Health Alliance.