The UNM Clinical and Translational Science Center announced last week that it has received a $23 million grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health through its Clinical and Translational Science Award.
UNM shares this award with more than 60 other institutions around the United States, including many of the nation’s top universities and Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Dartmouth, according to the CTSA website. The CTSA is among the most prestigious awards from the NIH, said John Arnold, director of news and multimedia services at HSC.
The UNM Health Sciences Center first received the award in 2010, according to the Center’s press release.
The CTSA helps research teams break barriers and streamline research process, thereby meeting the needs of scientists to help create new research and treatments that will meet current and future health challenges, according to the NIH website.
“The prestigious CTSA grant recognizes the UNM Health Sciences Center’s success in conducting medical and health care research and developing new biotechnology in a host of areas, including infectious disease, metabolic disorders and substance abuse,” Dr. Richard S. Larson, executive vice chancellor of pathology and vice president for research at the UNM HSC, said in a release.
Larson said support from the CTSA makes discoveries possible that could change the lives of the residents of New Mexico.
Some of the research done by UNM CTSC includes electroconvulsive therapy to treat depression, research in enhancing diagnosis and treatment for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and improving diagnostic tools for cystic fibrosis patients, according to the UNM CTSC website.
The NIH introduced the CTSA in 2006 to speed new drug therapies, vaccines and diagnostic tools through development to “move biomedical research from bench to bedside” according to the statement.
According to the press release UNM’s CTSC brought in a record $161 million in outside grant funding for research and 38 biotech businesses have resulted from research conducted at UNM over the past decade.
“Research means hope,” Larson stated in the press release. “This accomplishment demonstrates the terrific progress we have made in just five years as a CTSA. We are excited to contemplate the many advances in coming years that will benefit New Mexicans.”
Fin Martinez is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @FinMartinez.
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