The University of California San Diego School of Medicine's Centers for Integrative Health has received a five-year, $6.2 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the REACH Center for Translational Science on Whole Person Health.
The three principal investigators are Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, Gene "Rusty" Kallenberg, M.D., professor emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and founding director of the Centers for Integrative Health, and Ryan Bradley, N.D., M.P.H., associate professor at UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science.
The goal of whole person health is to promote health and prevent disease by addressing the interconnected physical, social and emotional factors that contribute to overall well-being, as well as a patient's values and beliefs. It emphasizes personalized, coordinated care across different health care providers and disciplines.
Conventional medicine is hyper-specialized, and that's been extremely powerful for helping us cure disease and make advancements in health, but we aren't just separate organs or body systems."
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., director of the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness
The initiative is designed to advance research in whole person health through strategic partnerships between UC San Diego and accredited institutions specializing in complementary and integrative health (CIH) modalities such as acupuncture, physical therapy, naturopathic medicine and East Asian medicine.
While these institutions offer training in whole person health, many lack access to research and funding opportunities - as well as cutting-edge technology - to conduct translational studies that can turn scientific discoveries into real-world health solutions for patients.
"The REACH Center will create a virtual resource hub for these schools so that they can have access to the world-class biomedical research infrastructure that we have here at UC San Diego," said Vieten.
The collaboration will initially support at least 26 new research scholars from six CIH institutions through a two-year career advancement program, pairing them with integrative medicine and translational research faculty mentors from UC San Diego and other University of California health campuses, including the Samueli Institute for Integrative Medicine at UC Irvine, the Center for Integrative Medicine at UC Davis, the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health, and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Participants will receive micro-credential training in research methodologies, guidance on developing pilot projects, and access to UC San Diego's state-of-the-art facilities, including the CIT Biomarker Lab, the Center for Microbiome Innovation at Jacobs School of Engineering and the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI).
In addition, the initiative will fund between 15 and 30 pilot grants to assist research scholars and other faculty from CIH institutions in launching their own research careers in order to drive innovation in translational science. These projects will leverage the University of California's advanced technologies and large patient populations, addressing longstanding challenges such as study size, statistical rigor, and access to clinical data.
"This funding opportunity was specifically designed to build capacity at complementary and integrative health universities," said Bradley.
UC San Diego can also benefit from collaborative research with these institutions to investigate possible mechanisms of action for various modalities, which modalities work, and what works for each individual patient, according to Vieten.
Within five years, the REACH Center aims to significantly increase the number and quality of research grants submitted by complementary and integrative health institutions, foster long-term collaborations, and retain talented researchers within the field. The objective is to generate innovative, evidence-based approaches that improve health outcomes and inform national health care policy.
"The ultimate goal is to have these universities submitting higher quality research grants that are fundable, and that process will likely start with collaborative grant opportunities with us here at UC San Diego," said Bradley. The first cohort of UC San Diego REACH trainees will begin in January 2026, and opportunities to apply for pilot grants are already open.
"This effort to help other CIH institutions develop their research programs and research-capable faculty will also help our own CIH faculty, who can collaborate with them along the way and also participate in the group educational activities our REACH Center develops," said Kallenberg.
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