About CAIRIBU

Hundreds of millions of people, both nationally and globally, are directly impacted by non-cancerous genitourinary (GU) diseases and disorders. These conditions, including but not limited to UTIs, urolithiasis (kidney stones), urinary incontinence, over/underactive bladder, pelvic pain syndrome, and erectile dysfunction cost over $11.5 billion dollars to treat annually. To improve GU clinical treatment and patient outcomes, we must identify and address the most important knowledge gaps in benign GU research and advance our understanding of benign GU disorders. To that end, we have formed a collaborative research community – Collaborating for the Advancement of Interdisciplinary Research in Benign Urology (CAIRIBU). The CAIRIBU community consists of the U54 George M. O’Brien Cooperative Research Centers, P20 Fostering Research with Additional Resources and Development (FORWARD) Centers, K12 Urologic Research (KURe) Career Development Program, K12 Urological Epidemiology (UroEpi) Institutional Research Career Development Program, and U24 CAIRIBU Interactions Core. Let’s break down what the different key players in the CAIRIBU Community do: U24 Interactions Core: Provides organizational leadership & engage with NIDDK Program Officers to identify and maximize research resources and opportunities to share across CAIRIBU Centers and programs, facilitate communication, collaboration, exchange of knowledge across Program Officers, and investigators, trainees, and collaborators and the next generation of researchers.

• University of Wisconsin-Madison: 2020-2025; 2025-2030 – PI, Kristina Penniston, PhD, RD

U54 George M. O’Brien Cooperative Urology Research Centers: Conduct basic, translational and clinical research into the pathophysiology of urologic diseases and disorders. Support complementary research projects, generate and provide investigative resources that are available to the broader research community. The current U54 Centers are as follows:

• Columbia University: 2014-2019; 2020-2025 – PIs, Cathy Mendelsohn, PhD; Jonathan Barasch, MD, PhD; Ali Gharavi, MD; and Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, MD, PhD
• Stanford University: 2021-2026 – PI, James Brooks, MD
• University of Wisconsin-Madison: 2014-2019; 2019-2024 – PI, Will Ricke, PhD

P20 FORWARD Centers: Focus on expanding the benign urology research community. Each support a research project spearheaded by an interdisciplinary team of investigators with the goal of generating data for securing independent grants. The current P20 Centers are as follows:

• Mayo Clinic Rochester: 2022-2025 – PIs, Kevin Koo, MD, MPH; John Lieske, MD
• Endeavor Health System: 2024-2027 – PIs, Simon Hayward, PhD; Renee Vickman, PhD
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: 2024-2027 – PIs, David Chu, MD, MSCE; Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE

K12 KURe & KUroEpi: Career development for those holding doctorate degrees who are interested in pursuing non-malignant urologic research or who are interested in pursuing research in the epidemiology of non-malignant urological conditions. Current K12 programs are as follows: Multidisciplinary Urologic Career Development Programs (KURe):

• Duke University, PI, Cindy Amundsen, MD
• Stanford University– PIs, James Brooks, MD; Joseph Liao, MD
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, PI, Chad Vezina, PhD

Urological Epidemiology (UroEpi) Institutional Research Career Development Programs:

• University of California San Francisco, PI, Alison Huang, MD, MPhil, MAS
• University of Michigan, PIs, Aruna Sarma, PhD; Quentin Clemens, MD

Our centers and programs span the United States, but our alumni, collaborators, and event attendees hail from all over the world. Want to get more involved? Check out our upcoming events or reach out to cairibu@urology.wisc.edu.