Research investigators at UNMC received $26.6 million in grants during the last six months of 2001 — a 29 percent increase over the same period in 2000. The increase indicates a new determination within UNMC’s research community to answer Chancellor Harold M. Maurer’s challenge to pursue more grants — and larger amounts — as the foundation for UNMC leadership in the health sciences, said David Crouse, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and associate dean for graduate studies and research.
“This growth in research grant funding represents a convergence of three elements,” Dr. Crouse said. “Our faculty are submitting many more grants, they are pursuing larger grants, and the growing budget at the National Institutes of Health creates a larger pool of opportunity for our researchers.
“In particular, many of the larger grants are collaborative efforts,” Dr. Crouse said. “Faculty members realize that they need to combine forces to go after these high six-figure and million dollar opportunities. Moreover, their success encourages other researchers to emulate their efforts, and successful researchers are willingly mentoring others to go for it.”
Since becoming chancellor in 1998, Dr. Maurer has persistently trumpeted increased research as the number one priority of his administration and the key to UNMC’s future. He has provided not only the encouragement, but the infrastructure that gives more faculty members the tools needed to seek major research opportunities, Dr. Crouse said. In addition, he also led the drive to earmark many of the state’s tobacco settlement funds to the Nebraska Biomedical Research Initiative. Approximately $4.9 million was awarded to UNMC for biomedical research in 2001-2002.
Some of the largest grants received are program project grants acquired by research leaders such as Thomas Rosenquist, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research; Irving Zucker, Ph.D., chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics; and Ercole Cavalieri, D.Sc., professor in the Eppley Research Institute. Program project grants are typically larger than grants awarded to individual scientists, as they bring together a group of researchers who collaborate to study a narrow theme. Due to the large value of program project grants, they are extremely competitive. Training grants provide for additional staffing and instruction of graduate fellows and research assistants that may be needed. Included in the $27.6 million grant total are four program grants of $1 million or more and two others for more than $975,000 each.
One of the grants received during the past six months was a $1.3 million grant to the College of Medicine for Swanson Hall laboratory renovations. This grant, received by James Armitage, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine, will update and better organize the space currently occupied by eight faculty members of the Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders. The alterations will upgrade several laboratories to improve safety, research efficiency, program integration and scientific dialogue between investigators.
Dr. Rosenquist received a $988,000 grant to test the way that improper nutrition, drugs and environmental exposures may interact with selected genes to induce congenital heart defects. The project seeks improved ways to predict which women are most likely to deliver babies with heart defects.
“We really enjoy the growth of internal mentoring groups such as those led by senior researchers Dr. Tom Rosenquist, Dr. Howard Gendelman, Dr. Irving Zucker, Dr. Ercole Cavalieri, and Dr. Tony Hollingsworth, for example,” Dr. Crouse said. “They not only lead junior staff to greater science capabilities, but they also make grant writing and pursuit of funding a critical component of each team member’s success.
“This increase in grant funding mentoring and leadership, combined with increased faculty willingness to achieve through collaborative strength what individual researchers previously couldn’t achieve alone, are producing the success envisioned by Chancellor Maurer. He said we could do it and we are.”