Program Overview
The UCSF Child Health Advanced Molecular Phenotyping program, or CHAMP, is designed to help investigators better understand childhood disease by making high-quality human biological samples and molecular data more accessible across UCSF.
Many serious pediatric illnesses remain difficult to explain using traditional clinical information alone. CHAMP addresses this gap by supporting the careful collection, processing, preservation, and study of biological samples from children across a wide range of diseases and clinical settings. The goal is to make it easier for researchers to connect what is happening in a child's body at the molecular and cellular level with the clinical course of illness.
CHAMP is built around two complementary goals. The first is to create a coordinated infrastructure for collecting biofluids and tissues from willing participants, especially children with severe, rare, or poorly understood diseases. Whenever possible, samples are obtained from the sites most relevant to disease and are processed using protocols designed to preserve their value for both current and future technologies.
The second goal is to pair these samples with advanced molecular profiling platforms that can generate detailed information about immune responses, gene expression, cellular states, antibodies, pathogens, and other features of disease biology. These data can then be used by investigators across UCSF to generate new hypotheses, identify disease mechanisms, and ultimately improve diagnosis and treatment for children.
CHAMP operates under IRB-approved protocols that allow collection of human biofluids and tissues, including biopsy and post-mortem specimens, across organ systems and age groups. The program has developed workflows for rapid processing, cryopreservation, and live cell preservation so that valuable samples can be studied with the best available technologies.
Strategic Rationale
Children have historically been underrepresented in biomedical research, especially in studies that require high-quality tissue, immune, or molecular data. This has limited our ability to understand why some children develop severe disease, why others recover, and how pediatric illness may differ from adult disease.
CHAMP was created to help close this gap. Rather than focusing on a single disease, the program provides a shared platform that can support many different research questions across pediatrics. By linking carefully processed samples with clinical information from the medical record, CHAMP can help investigators study disease in a more complete and biologically meaningful way.
The program is intentionally collaborative. Its purpose is not to replace disease-specific research programs, but to strengthen them by providing infrastructure, sample processing expertise, and access to advanced molecular technologies. By working across divisions, departments, and research groups, CHAMP aims to make rare and precious pediatric samples more useful to the broader UCSF scientific community.
Vision
CHAMP's long-term vision is to support a more integrated and collaborative approach to pediatric discovery at UCSF. By building shared infrastructure for biospecimen collection, molecular profiling, and clinical data integration, CHAMP aims to help researchers uncover the mechanisms of childhood disease and translate those insights into better care.
Our goal is for CHAMP to become a trusted resource for investigators, clinicians, patients, and families — a program that helps turn generous participation in research into discoveries that benefit children with serious and poorly understood illnesses.