CUB: Research Projects

CUB has partnered with dozens of researchers across Columbia, and samples donated have been crucial in leading to new scientific findings.

Dr. Ken Olive,  an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, conducted a study using CUB samples and data to investigate a new drug for treating pancreatic cancer. The results of this study were published in Nature, a leading scientific journal, in April 2024, and the drug is currently undergoing clinical trials.

Dr. Hulya Bayir is the Chief of the Division of Critical and Palliative Care and Hospital Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Bayir is working with the CUB to collect samples from children in intensive care to better understand what causes severe illness in children.  

To help our pediatric patients better understand CUB, we have created an assent video that they can watch as part of the consent process. You can watch the video here.

Samples donated to CUB have been an instrumental part of research on COVID-19. During the height of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020, Dr. Thomas Connors worked with the CUB to collect plasma samples from pediatric patients diagnosed with COVID-19. The results of this study, which were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, found that patients who experienced more severe COVID-19 infection had more robust protection from future infections.

Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhelmann, an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, has partnered with the CUB to obtain samples for a long-term study that uses wastewater surveillance to detect new outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Uhlemann's study was published in Nature in August 2021.

 Dr. Jianwen Que, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, relied on samples from CUB for his study on COVID-19 and its impact on pulmonary fibrosis.