TL;DR: How persistence, partnership, and the right support helped Adam Bress, secure his first Department of Defense award
By Amanda Ashley, Director of Communications, Office of the Vice President for Research
For more than a decade, Adam Bress, PharmD, MS, had built a highly successful research career supported by NIH funding. He knew the system, the language, and the expectations. But in 2025, amid growing uncertainty in the federal research landscape, Bress made a deliberate decision to step outside familiar territory.
“I just knew I needed to diversify,” he said.
That decision ultimately led to his first Department of Defense (DoD) award, funded through the FY2025 Alzheimer’s Research Program of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP). The experience, Bress says, reshaped how he thinks about funding, impact, and the role of institutional support in helping investigators succeed with new sponsors.
A research focus rooted in prevention
Bress joined the University of Utah faculty in 2014, with training in clinical pharmacy and epidemiology. His research examines how prescription medications are used across large populations, with a particular emphasis on preventing heart disease and dementia.
“Heart disease is the leading cause of death, and dementia is one of the leading causes of disability,” Bress explained. “A lot of my work focuses on how we treat the major risk factors for both; high blood pressure and high cholesterol.”
Those conditions are often invisible to patients, which makes prevention challenging.
“High blood pressure and high cholesterol are what they call silent killers,” he said. “People don’t feel them. So we’re asking patients to take medications or change their lifestyle for something that doesn’t feel urgent in the moment. But managing those risks earlier can dramatically reduce long-term risk of heart disease and dementia. The dementia piece really resonates, almost everyone says, ‘I don’t want to get dementia.’”
For the past 14 years, Bress and his collaborators have studied how cardiovascular medications are used, misused, underused, or overused across different populations, incorporating social determinants of health, race and ethnicity, and sex and gender differences. Despite the clear relevance to public health, DoD funding had never been part of his research portfolio.
Responding to a shifting funding landscape
That changed in 2025.
Like many investigators, Bress was paying close attention to conversations from U research leadership about funding diversification. He attended VPR town halls and Q&A sessions, listening closely as leaders emphasized the importance of expanding beyond traditional funding sources.
“I was trying to think: what are all the things I can do to keep my lab funded and moving forward?” he said. “I realized I needed to give this a real try.”
“Our focus has been on building an ecosystem that makes it easier for investigators to succeed in new funding spaces,” said Erin Rothwell, Vice president for research. “That means being transparent about the funding environment, creating consistent points of engagement with faculty, and surrounding investigators with teams who can help translate strong science into opportunities like DoD funding. Adam’s experience reflects that system is working as intended.”
Although he had no prior experience with DoD funding, Bress began exploring the opportunity with long-time collaborator Andrew Moran, MD, MPH, a general internist and health economist at Columbia University. When they identified a CDMRP funding call focused on Alzheimer’s disease, the alignment was clear.
“Our work aligned really well,” Bress said. “But we also knew we had a lot to learn.”
The project builds on a long-standing, cross-institutional collaboration, bringing together complementary expertise from the University of Utah and Columbia University to address complex health questions from multiple perspectives.
Navigating a new funding culture
From the application process to terminology like “military readiness” and “deployability,” nearly everything about the DoD submission process felt unfamiliar.
“The forms, the submission platform, the emphasis on community partnerships, it was all new,” Bress said. “The science fundamentals were the same, but the style, focus, and language were very different.”
To navigate that learning curve, Bress leaned heavily on resources and people across campus, particularly the Applied Medical & Engineering Lab (AM&E Lab). For the AM&E Lab, where this kind of hands-on, translational support is intentional. “Our goal is to help investigators see where their work already aligns with DoD priorities and then walk alongside them through a process that can feel unfamiliar at first,” said Jim McDonough, executive director of DoD research. “Adam’s project was strong science — our role was helping him translate that into a DoD context.”
“We were very consultative,” he said. “We asked a lot of questions. We took advice. We had a teach-me attitude, because Andrew and I really didn’t know what we were doing.”
That support proved critical not only in translating the science for a DoD audience, but also in building confidence.
“It’s very easy to talk yourself out of doing something that’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar,” Bress said. “But they gave us reasons to do it. They gave us confidence that our work could fit and could be funded.”
For Austin Johnson, MD, Medical research director at Ame Lab, that confidence-building is a core part of the model. “We want investigators focused on the research itself,” Johnson said. “Our job is to help carry the weight of navigating the funding landscape and different sponsor cultures.”
A critical partnership
One of the most impactful contributions came through AM&E Lab’s assistance in identifying and connecting the team with a community partner, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation.
“That connection was huge,” Bress said. “The caregiver perspective was something we wanted to include, and when we talked about that, AM&E Lab brought up the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and facilitated the introduction and helped curate a relationship. That partnership was absolutely critical to the application.”
The Foundation’s mission to support military and veteran caregivers aligned directly with the proposal’s focus on preventing cognitive decline and supporting long-term readiness and quality of life. “Community partnerships are a core part of many DoD programs, but they can be difficult for investigators to identify and establish on their own,” said McDonough. “Our role is to help connect investigators with mission-aligned partners who bring lived experience and real-world perspective to the work, in this case, caregivers who are central to long-term readiness and quality of life.”
From first submission to funding success
The proposal, “The Value of Hypertension Control to Prevent Dementia and Enhance Readiness,” received strong peer review and was ultimately recommended for funding, a significant milestone for a first-time DoD applicant. Looking back, Bress says the experience changed how he thinks about future funding opportunities. “I’m going to think about DoD more,” he said. “People sometimes assume you need years of networking or conference attendance before you can even try. Those things are important, but this showed me it’s possible to succeed without having done everything already.”
His advice to other investigators considering their first DoD submission is simple:
“Don’t convince yourself it’s not a good fit or not possible,” Bress said. “You may have to be creative. You may have to learn a new language. But it can work, especially if you’re willing to ask for help.”
A model for funding diversification
For Bress, the award represents more than a single grant. It reflects what’s possible when strong science is paired with strategic institutional support.
“There were a lot of moments where I could have stopped,” he said. “But with the encouragement and guidance that was there, from AM&E Lab and from research leadership, we kept going.”
As the University of Utah continues to emphasize funding diversification, Bress’s experience offers a clear example of how investigators can successfully branch into new sponsor spaces, and how the right infrastructure can make all the difference.
“This didn’t happen because I suddenly became a DoD expert,” Bress said. “It happened because the support was in place to help me learn, translate my work and take a risk.”
McDonough and Johnson agree and encourage investigators interested in participating in DoD funding opportunities to contact them. “The CDMRP funding cycle is right around the corner and we’re here to support investigators who may be interested in aligning their research with DoD and National Security priorities, said McDonough.”
Exploring new funding opportunities?
The AM&E Lab offers support for investigators considering DoD support for the first time.
Learn more
Adam Bress, PharmD, MS,
The Bress Lab
