Jennifer Larsen, MD, discussing development of the National Strategic Research Institute

11 January 2023

Jennifer Larsen: The National Strategic Research Institute was an opportunity that came about early on as I was becoming the vice chancellor of research and, you know, it was kind of a foreign concept from my standpoint. It’s a university-affiliated research center. It's a designation by the Department of Defense saying that you can have sole source contracting for research kind of jobs that are relevant to your areas of competency, which are combating weapons of mass destruction. Now, as a clinician, it's like, “Are we doing that [laughs] here on our campus?” But I think I came to realize that the Department of Defense, you know, you have to think in Department of Defense terms, but we absolutely were and are doing research that combats weapons of mass destruction. If nothing else, keep in mind—first of all this was a University of Nebraska initiative, so obviously UNL had a role to play, UNO, UNK. But if you think about if you have a weapon of mass destruction, it doesn't just destroy things, it impacts people. And there has to be healthcare at the moment, in a remote site, in a plane—in a ship, in a remote field, and remote medicine is a lot about what we are trying to do here at University of Nebraska Medical Center. Nebraska is a rural state, so we already were doing a lot of telemedicine or other strategies to be able to provide remote care. And so that dovetailed very, very well.

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Special Collections and Archives