OCR began as an experiment in proximity: a research office embedded with investigators, staffed by scientists and science allies, and entrusted to build whatever the work required. Four years and eight partners later, the experiment is the model.
An office that started with one mission and grew an arm each time investigators needed something that didn't yet exist. The full story follows.
OCR launches, seeded by the Bakar ImmunoX Initiative, to help basic researchers reach the clinic.
A research development arm is added. UCSF Health engages OCR to run a new clinical research unit.
IGHS and the Diabetes Center adopt the OCR model as institute partners.
AI Tools and Community Management complete OCR's five-arm model. OCR takes on the Pulmonary clinical research units.
OCR did not begin as a five-arm research office.
It began with a very practical problem: ImmunoX investigators were moving closer to human biology, but the bridge between basic research and the clinic was still too hard to cross.
Human subjects research was becoming central to discovery. Faculty wanted access to clinical samples, patient cohorts, translational collaborations, and real-world disease contexts. But getting from a scientific idea to a functioning clinical research pipeline required a strange mix of skills: scientific fluency, regulatory navigation, project management, clinical coordination, data organization, and the ability to keep many people moving in the same direction.
So in September 2022, under Dr. Vincent Chan's guidance and seeded by the Bakar ImmunoX Initiative, OCR launched as an experiment.
The original mission was simple: help basic researchers connect to the clinic.
But like most good experiments, the result was bigger than the hypothesis.
As OCR got closer to investigators, it became clear that the bottleneck was not just clinical access. Faculty also needed help turning ambitious ideas into fundable programs. UCSF had no shortage of brilliant science. What it needed was more connective tissue: people who could shape early concepts, build grant narratives, coordinate collaborators, and help proposals become competitive before the deadline panic set in.
So in 2024, OCR launched its Research Development arm.
That changed the trajectory. OCR was no longer just helping research reach the clinic. It was helping ideas become programs.
Hover a milestone to read more.Tap a milestone to read more.
Then the model started to travel.
In September 2024, UCSF Health acquired Stanyan and Hyde Hospitals and wanted to preserve and strengthen the clinical research already happening there. Rather than letting that work drift, UCSF Health engaged OCR to manage the Clinical Research Unit. It was exactly the kind of messy, high-stakes, high-coordination problem OCR was built for: people, protocols, patients, operations, and institutional change all moving at once.
By January 2025, new partners were coming in for a different reason. The Institute for Global Health Sciences and the Diabetes Center partnered with OCR, drawn especially to the growing Research Development arm and the need for embedded grant strategy across their research communities.
A year later, in January 2026, Pulmonary partnered with OCR to manage its Interstitial Lung Disease and Bronchiectasis Clinical Research Units, expanding OCR's role in clinical research operations even further.
By May 2026, the pattern was impossible to miss.
OCR had become more than a service office. It had become a platform.
Research Development. Clinical Coordination and Project Management. Data Management and Sharing. Research Resources and AI Tools. Community Management.
Five service arms, each added because a real bottleneck appeared and OCR decided to build the thing that was missing.
That is still the philosophy.
OCR does not start with a fixed menu and ask researchers to fit inside it. We start with the work. We listen for the friction. We find the gap between the idea and the execution, between the clinic and the lab, between the proposal and the program, between the data and the story.
Then we build around it.
Four years and eight partners later, OCR is still the same experiment at heart: a research office embedded close enough to the science to understand what matters, nimble enough to adapt as needs change, and practical enough to turn ambition into something fundable, executable, and durable.
We publish our scorecard. We share our software. We keep looking for the next bottleneck worth removing.
And then we build.
"Closer is better. Embedded staff outperform shared services. We invest in proximity."
Embedded staff outperform shared services. We invest in proximity.
Our team comes from the bench, the clinic, and the field — immunology, endocrinology, global health, computation. We speak the language before we touch the page.
When existing tools don't fit, we build our own — and share what we learn.
Funded dollars, hours saved, PI satisfaction. We publish our scorecard.
We design partnerships at the program, department, or institute level — and we're actively looking for what's next.