November 05, 2013

UAB awards $1.5 million in research grants for multidisciplinary projects

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The General Endowment Fund of the UA Health Services Foundation has announced its annual faculty grants, awarding nearly $1.5 million to UAB faculty for projects in clinical care, patient research, medical education and laboratory research. Each project must be multi-disciplinary and demonstrate strong potential for long-term success.

“Supporting research and innovation are important to the mission of the Health Services Foundation, and is what sets us apart from other non-academic medical practices,” says Patricia Pritchett, J.D., executive vice president of the HSF.

Since 1996, the GEF has awarded more than $57 million to UAB faculty to support innovation in three areas: clinical care, medical education, laboratory research and patient-oriented research.

Grants were awarded Nov. 1 this year, reflecting a new timetable. Requests for applications for the 2014 cycle will be sent by May 1, 2014 and will be due by Aug. 1.

Clinical Care Initiatives

“The UAB-HSF Advanced Lung and Heart-Lung Diseases Program”
Principal investigator: Keith Willie, M.D., associated professor of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care in the Department of Medicine
Funded: $272,000

“UAB Inpatient Procedure Service”
Principal investigator: Kierstin Cates Leslie, M.D., assistant professor, VA Quality Scholars Fellow Co-principal investigator: Jason Morris, M.D., associate professor of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine
Funded: $115,000

Medical Education

“A Novel Gamification-Infused Educational Platform for Millennial Learners”
Principal investigator: James Willig, M.D., associate professor of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine
Funded: $157,000

“Simulation Infrastructure Expansion for Preclinical Health Professions”
Principal investigator: Marjorie Lee White, M.D., associate professor of Emergency Medicine
Funded: $183,000


Patient Research

“Premature Prevention and Research Related to the Microbiotome”
Principal investigator: Rodney Edwards, M.D., associate professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology
Funded: $100,000

“Accelerating Translational Bioenergetics at UAB”
Principal investigator: Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pathology and director of the Center for Free Radical Biology
Funded: $100,000

“Balance, Eye and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Facility”
Principal investigator: James E. Johnson, M.D., professor of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine
Funded: $175,000


Laboratory Research

“Small Animal Microsurgical Core Resource Grade”
Principal investigator: James George, Ph.D., professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Department of Surgery
Funded: $28,550

“Nanosight NS300 for Nanoparticle Tracking”
Principal investigator: Ralph Sanderson, Ph.D., professor of Molecular and Cellular Pathology in the Department of Pathology
Funded: $51,435

“UAB Infrastructure for Storage and Analysis of Next-Generation Sequence Data”
Principal investigator: Malay Basu, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pathology Informatics in the Department of Pathology
Funded: $125,000

“Upgrade of the UAB Stem Cell Institute HiSeq2000
Principal investigator: Kevin Pawlik, Ph.D., associate professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
Funded: $106,168

“Resources for Automated Membrane Protein Characterization and Drug Screening”
Principal investigator: Bakhrom Berdiev, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology
Funded: $67,000