Help Fuel Tomorrow's Health Breakthroughs
Every Dollar Helps Lead to Better Living
The Colorado Longitudinal Study (COLS) is the world’s first research repository combining biological samples with lifestyle information over time to provide researchers with the information they need to discover more complete answers to our biggest health questions. That means better treatments, new cures, and a healthier future for people in Colorado and around the globe.
COLS will begin building its database and biobank by recruiting its first participants in Fort Collins in 2022. We plan to expand enrollment in that area and begin recruiting participants in additional communities after completing a successful pilot project. We will continue to expand our participant population, with the goal of enrolling thousands of Coloradans representing Colorado’s diverse population in terms of age, race, geography, education, and socioeconomic status. This large number of people, tracked annually over time, will provide researchers with biological specimens and data to be able to study a wide range of common diseases. By concentrating participants in just Colorado, research can be done down to the neighborhood level – something that other biobanks have not been able to do. This will help researchers and public health experts examine environmental and lifestyle factors across a similar population of people who have different health outcomes.
As a non-profit organization that will share its biological specimens and health data with all qualified researchers, we require financial support from many people and organizations. To achieve our bold vision, we will rely primarily on grants from health foundations and scientific institutions. We also depend on private philanthropists and individual donors. Even those who can make only a small donation will help fuel a huge shift in our understanding of how to maintain health for all people.
Why Support COLS?
Despite amazing advancements in medical care in our country, Americans are sicker than ever before. One in every three adults lives with a chronic health condition that stops them from living a full life, shortens their lifespan, and drains their finances. Lifespan in the United States has decreased over the past three years, while increasing in the rest of the developed world. There are two main reasons for this, and COLS can help researchers address both:
- Medical care has focused on developing therapies that treat diseases after they develop, often in advanced stages. COLS will enable researchers to discover biomarkers that indicate disease will develop or is in its very earliest stages, when treatments are more effective or even when lifestyle changes can head them off.
- We now know that social determinants of health – such as where you live or work – play an enormous roll in your health. By following participants for a decade or more, researchers will be able to understand which factors are most important for different subgroups of the population.
Global Research
COLS is a resource that will be available to researchers around the world. It is a precompetitive biobank that nonprofit, academic, governmental, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology researchers will be able to access. COLS is unique in the world of biobanking because it will collect biological, sociological, and health information over several years, allowing researchers to look into the past to identify the causes and markers of future disease.
Funding Future Health
COLS is a nonprofit organization, funded through individual philanthropy and grants. Our long-term sustainability depends on a combination of philanthropic grants and, over time, developing an income stream by selling biological specimens and data to for-profit researchers (specimens and data will be available free of charge to academic and nonprofit researchers). Founding funders include the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, The Anschutz Foundation, the Boettcher Foundation, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado State University, and individual philanthropists. Early-stage funding is crucial to COLS ability to expand after its pilot project. We are actively pursuing additional grants from family and community foundations, as well as research-oriented organizations in the academic, government, and corporate sectors.
Help Build COLS
COLS relies on philanthropic gifts to sustain our work. Please consider joining us as we create a world-class biobank that will fuel unprecedented advances in health. Every donation makes a difference through generous matching contributions provided by our funders. Consider making a donation of $25, $50, or $100 today. If you are a philanthropic foundation and would like to learn more about how COLS can contribute to your health mission, please contact us.