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Duke Researchers Bring Stimulus Funds And Jobs To NC

Nearly 250 grants total $153.9 million

Though the funding is only short-term, the wave of grants flowing into North Carolina and the Duke University campus from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has provided a much-needed boost to hundreds of researchers.

 

 

For example, a two-year, $1.5 million stimulus grant from the NIH's Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is accelerating assistant professor Svati Shah's search for genetic differences in human metabolism that may relate to a higher risk of heart disease. She's using the funds to add four new people to her lab.

 

 

"I'm up until 2 or 3 in the morning doing statistical analyses because I didn't have anybody to help me," Shah said. She plans to hire a post-doctoral fellow, a Ph.D. statistician and two lab technicians.

 

 

Those four new people are among 166 new jobs created or saved at Duke to date by the stimulus funds, after an unprecedented nationwide competition for grants under the one-time stimulus package.

 

 

Duke's total funding, from all federal agencies granting stimulus awards, is $153.9 million on 248 grants as of Oct. 23. Some awards are still pending, so these numbers may change. Some of these awards are related to important scientific equipment and renovation which will benefit the research community at Duke for many years.

 

 

In the first quarterly report of jobs created or saved by the stimulus program, North Carolina ranked fifth, with 28,073 jobs. For National Institutes of Health (NIH) stimulus funding, North Carolina is ranked sixth. In total stimulus funding, the state ranks 10th in the nation.

 

 

Stimulus funding has been a temporary shot in the arm, but much-needed, said Nancy Andrews, dean of Duke's School of Medicine.

 

 

"NIH funding has been flat for six years -- the longest plateau in its history -- even though the costs of research have continued to rise," she said. "Our faculty's success in competing for these grants is helping us maintain our commitment to excellence in research and the education of future physicians, health care scholars, and basic and clinical research scientists."

 

Duke University ranks fifth nationally in the amount of NIH funding won under the stimulus program. The University of North Carolina is 10th. Together, they made North Carolina's Fourth Congressional District the third-highest funded district for NIH stimulus funds.

 

 

The scramble for ARRA funding was extraordinary in its scope and timeline. Research administrators at Duke created a special team for ARRA applications to help the faculty submit 854 grant proposals in record time. Several proposals for major infrastructure improvements are still pending.

 

 

"Our success shows how broad and strong Duke's research enterprise is and

 

how well we're advancing the frontiers in many fields," said James Siedow, vice provost for research. "These awards were granted on scientific merit, not political considerations, and we're proud that our researchers have been able to help the state of North Carolina win so much of this federal stimulus funding."

Here are a few highlights of Duke's nearly 250 ARRA Awards:

 

The Immune System and Fetal Brain Development Staci Bilbo, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience who joined the Duke faculty two years ago, is doubling the size of her lab by adding two technicians and a post-doctoral fellow. A two-year ARRA award will expand her work on how bacterial infections in pregnant females can affect the brain development and long-term cognitive abilities of their babies. (NIH, Institute for Mental Health, 2 years, $889,200)

 

 

Comparison of Chest Pain Tests Pamela S. Douglas, a professor of medicine in the Duke Clinical Research Institute, will enroll 10,000 patients at 150 sites to compare different cardiac diagnostic tests in real-world settings to help clinicians better diagnose chest pain. (NIH, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2 years, $13.6 million)

 

 

 New Therapy for Methamphetamine Abuse Tong H. Lee, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, will be studying new formulations of existing drugs in a search for treatment of methamphetamine abuse. (NIH, Institute on Drug Abuse, 2 years, $2.1 million)

 

 

 Experimental Vaccination Against Nicotine Alexey Mukhin, a professor of medical psychology, is going to test a vaccine against nicotine to see if it reduces the accumulation of the drug in the brain during cigarette smoking. Sixty-five smokers will undergo brain scans while smoking, before and after vaccination. (NIH, Institute on Drug Abuse, 2 years, $2.6 million)

 

 The Lens of a Developing Eye / Eye Pressure and Glaucoma Vasanth Rao, an associate professor of ophthalmology and pharmacology, has been awarded two stimulus grants. One project concerns the cell-to-cell communication necessary to build the lens in a developing eye. This award will fund a post-doctoral fellow and one new lab technician. The second project, examining the cell signaling required to maintain proper pressure inside the eye and prevent glaucoma, will add one new postdoctoral fellow and one technician. (NIH, Eye Institute, 2 years, $780,000, and 2 years, $486,000)

 

 

 Environmental Triggers for Alzheimer's Disease Carol Colton, a professor of neurology, is studying mice that have a condition like human Alzheimer's disease to determine whether blood fat problems, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance and high blood pressure can trigger the changes leading to dementia. (NIH, 2 grants for 2 years, $1.2 million)

 

 

Imaging of Pre-Cancerous Cells in the Colon Adam Wax, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is expanding his work on using light to sense pre-cancerous cells. In previous studies, a fiber-optic probe has been used to note cellular changes in the esophagus; now the research will examine the colon. The funding allows him to retain three people in his lab and do some proof-of-concept work to win further funding. (NIH, Cancer Institute, 2 years, $633,697)