Roughly 150 miles separates Marshfield Clinic Research Institute from research colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but the work they do together as two different organizations is as important as two lab partners sharing the same microscope.

The Research Institute hosted Joint Research Day June 28 with the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), a partnership with University of Wisconsin and six of its schools/colleges (Education, Engineering, Medicine & Public Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine). The partnership was created around building capacity in translational science by training the next generation of biomedical and behavioral scientists; providing investigators and clinicians with the next generation of critical resources including digital technology and data science; and creating novel solutions to disseminate disruptive innovations to improve healthcare practice.

A series of presentations and discussions held in Froehlke Auditorium on the Marshfield Medical Center campus at Joint Research Day showed how far the institutions have come in a few years of working together. Presentations were led by Robert Greenlee, Ph.D. (Cancer Prevention); Michelle Chui, Ph.D. (Practice-Based Research Networks); Jeffery VanWormer, Ph.D. (Primary Care for Optimizing Weight Reduction); Alexandra Linz, Ph.D. & Jennifer Meece, Ph.D. (Tick Study/Community Science); Casper Bendixsen, Ph.D. (EHR & Veterans Health Status); and Andrea Swenson, Ph.D. and Heidi Kolster, M.D. (Caregiver Stories: Family Perspectives on Children with Medical Complexity).

“It’s a true complementary synergy,” said UW’s Nasia Safdar, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Investigator-Initiated & Multisite Research. “We need each other, we feed off each other. We help each other and we collaborate together. There are lots of pathways we can grow together.”

The research presented at this event, along with formal and informal discussions among participants, demonstrated the progress UW and MCRI has made toward achieving ICTR’s goal to bring tangible results quickly that can improve the public’s health. Many challenges still exist, such as breaking barriers to collaboration and further integrating research into patient care.

“Today is where those two things meet; where research meets up with the healthcare system to try and improve the health of patients and the communities, we both serve,” said Dr. VanWormer, who also is Director of MCRI’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology & Population Health. “It’s all about finding good projects with good people who can take them to the finish line. We will only see more of that when we do events like this.”