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Cardiology |
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| 12 Oct 2009 | Viewed: 100 | |
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Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has been awarded $38.2
million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part
of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). BIDMC
scientists received a total of 69 grants across all medical-center
departments, including surgery, neurology, pathology and a wide swath
of divisions within the Department of Medicine including cardiology,
hematology/oncology, nephrology, gastroenterology and geriatrics.
"This level of funding is a very impressive achievement and
speaks to the high caliber of BIDMC's research program," says Chief
Academic Officer Vikas Sukhatme, MD, PhD. "Virtually every BIDMC
department and division received grants encompassing all types of
research: basic, translational and clinical."
The NIH awarded a total of $5 billion in grants as part of the
overall $100 billion federal stimulus package. "At a time when federal
research dollars were declining significantly, this ARRA funding is a
true stimulus to research productivity," adds Sukhatme. "These 69 new
grants strengthen BIDMC's already strong research program, which has
consistently ranked in the top four in NIH funding among independent
hospitals nationwide for more than 10 years running."
Among the grants received by BIDMC was an award of $1.6
million to Dan Barouch, MD, PhD, Chief of BIDMC's Division of Vaccine
Research to continue his investigations of novel HIV
vaccine candidates. Also notable, Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD, PhD,
Associate Director of Research for BIDMC's Cancer Center was awarded a
grant of $2.1 million a year for two years for his work developing a
new paradigm for conducting clinical trials to test cancer therapies.
In addition, BIDMC scientists received a total of eight NIH Challenge
Grants. These two-year grants were specifically created as part of the
Recovery Act funding, and focus on "challenge topics" that address
biomedical research challenges that will benefit from "jumpstart"
funds.
"Like other funding in the federal stimulus package, these
grants are designed to have broad applications to the population as a
whole," notes Randy Mason, BIDMC Vice President of Research Operations.
"The BIDMC projects that were funded represent a wide range of subject
areas, from investigations into the causes of cancers and cardiac
diseases to the development of new technologies to help individuals
better manage sleep apnea and heal broken bones." (To see an entire
list of BIDMC-funded projects visit http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter_SearchResults.cfm.)
BIDMC's eight Challenge Grants include the following:
- Mary Bouxsein, PhD, of BIDMC's Center for Advanced Orthopaedic
Studies received a grant of more than $950,000 over two years to
investigate the effects of perinatal calorie restriction or high-fat
diet on the acquisition of bone mass and strength in mice to determine
its influence on adult bone disease;
- Christopher Evans, PhD, Director of the Center for
Advanced Orthopaedic Studies, received a grant totaling $980,186 over
two years to work with BIDMC's Orthopaedic Trauma team to develop
innovative ways to heal broken bones -- which are more efficient and
less expensive than existing methods;
- Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD, PhD, Associate Director of
Research of BIDMC's Cancer Center, was awarded a Challenge grant of $1
million over two years for his investigations of myelodysplastic
syndrome (MDS), an incurable life-threatening disorder;
- Jeffrey Saffitz, MD, PhD, Chairman of BIDMC's
Department of Pathology, will study a heart disease that carries the
greatest known risk of sudden cardiac death, a major public health
plague. He was awarded a Challenge Grant of $975,551 over two years;
- Martin Sanda, MD, Director of BIDMC's Prostate
Cancer Program, has received two Challenge Grants of $1 million each
over two years. The first grant will compare long-term side effects,
cancer control, and health-care costs of different treatments for
early-stage prostate cancer; the second will evaluate whether the use
of robotic assistance improves quality and consistency of prostate cancer surgery;
- Ralph Scully, MB, BS, PhD, of BIDMC's Division of
Hematology/Oncology was awarded a two-year Challenge Grant totaling
over $1 million to examine defects in double strand break (DSB) repair,
which are known to be common in human cancers and offer a potential new
target for cancer therapies. New tools developed in the Scully
laboratory will allow investigators to rapidly screen the human genome
for new genes that regulate DSB repair;
- Robert Thomas, MD, of the Division of Pulmonary,
Critical Care and Sleep Medicine received a two-year grant totaling $1
million to test a new method of assessing sleep quality based on
changes in the speed of a person's heart beat and breathing-related
factors. Thomas will assess the usefulness of this method as a monitor
of sleep health among patients with complicated forms of sleep apnea
and patients with heart failure.
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| News Source: medical news today |
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