Medical College of Wisconsin Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Clinical Research
As an academic institution, the division of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine is able to offer opportunities to participate in a variety of clinical trials. MCW faculty are engaged in a variety of clinical research trials conducted in collaboration with research networks and industry sponsored-trials.
Pulmonary Medicine Clinical Trials
What are clinical trials and why do people participate?
Clinical trials are part of clinical research and at the heart of all medical advances. Clinical trials look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat disease. Treatments might be new drugs or new combinations of drugs, new surgical procedures or devices, or new ways to use existing treatments.
The goal of clinical trials is to determine if a new test or treatment works and is safe. Clinical trials can also look at other aspects of care, such as improving the quality of life for people with chronic illnesses.
People participate in clinical trials for a variety of reasons. Healthy volunteers say they participate to help others and to contribute to moving science forward. Participants with an illness or disease also participate to help others, but also to possibly receive the newest treatment and to have the additional care and attention from the clinical trial staff.
Clinical trials offer hope for many people and an opportunity to help researchers find better treatments for others in the future.
Ongoing clinical trials in Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine
Ongoing clinical and translational research studies in the Division focus on improving outcomes and quality of life in patients with cystic fibrosis, developing new approaches to pulmonary arterial hypertension, and improving the care provided to ICU patients and their families.
Current pharmaceutical trials include the areas of cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension and interstitial lung disease. The cystic fibrosis clinical studies are aimed at improving airway hydration and breathing, reducing infections and inflammation, increasing weight thereby increasing quality of life and perhaps survival time. Our pulmonary arterial hypertension program conducts studies to extend survival and an in-process study for individuals with ILD/IPF looks at a potential medication’s likelihood of becoming standard of care with the same aim. We have also recently completed a study for critically ill patients with direct acute lung injury that aims to improve time to end of assisted breathing and survival time.
Listed below are a few of our enrolling studies. If you do not see a condition that you are interested in please contact us. We may have opportunities that are in the development phase or may consider your inquiry for future studies.
Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
Critical Care (CC)
Interventional Pulmonology
Clinical Research Staff



Jennifer Peterson
Clinical Research Coordinator II

