NHLBI Awards Recovery Act Grant to Columbia University Health Sciences

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a grant to Columbia University Health Sciences for its Genome-wide and Linkage Study of Quantitative Emphysema Phenotypes project. The principal investigator of this project is Dr. R. Graham Barr. This $499863 award is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act.)

The Recovery Act provides an unprecedented level of funding for biomedical research institutions across the country. A total of $10.4 billion in Recovery Act funds is going to the NIH to help stimulate the U.S. economy through the support and advancement of scientific research. The NHLBI is investing its $763 million allocation of economic stimulus funds into rigorously peer-reviewed research on the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, and blood diseases.

Heart, lung, and blood diseases account for three of the four leading causes of death in the United States. Discovering new ways to prevent, detect, and treat these diseases – while maintaining the United States’ global leadership in biomedical research – requires investments in innovative projects and in scientists.

"This award to Columbia University Health Sciences will present an extraordinary chance to advance biomedical research while creating jobs in local communities and opportunities for talented young and new investigators," said NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D. "We look forward to the outcome of this research, which will contribute to a better understanding of how we can improve the health of the American public."

This award is one of the NIH’s Challenge Grants. Challenge Grants support research on topic areas identified by the NIH that address selected scientific and health research priorities. The NIH designated over $200 million in FY 2009 for approximately 200 of these grants. The NIH received more than 20,000 applications for Challenge grants, making funding for this opportunity extremely competitive.

This new program will support research on Challenge Topics, which address specific scientific and health research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that will benefit from significant two-year jumpstart funds. Challenge Areas, defined by the NIH, focus on specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation, or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways. The research in these areas should have a high impact in biomedical or behavioral science and/or public health.

More than 40 percent of the NHLBI’s Recovery Act funding is dedicated to NIH-wide Recovery Act initiatives, which includes the Challenge grant program. More information about this project can be found at the NHLBI’s Recovery Act Web site.

NHLBI Communications Office
301-496-4236
nhlbi_news@nhlbi.nih.gov

Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) plans, conducts, and supports research related to the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart, blood vessel, lung, and blood diseases; and sleep disorders. The Institute also administers national health education campaigns on women and heart disease, healthy weight for children, and other topics. NHLBI press releases and other materials are available online at www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Last Updated Oct 29, 2009