Newswise — For the second time in less than one month, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School has been awarded a coveted $15 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “The impact of these grants has the potential to extend beyond the laboratories of New Jersey Medical School by reaching into local, national as well as international communities which stand to benefit from lifesaving research aimed at combating dreaded diseases like AIDS and other medical afflictions,” said Dr. Robert L. Johnson, interim dean of the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (NJMS).
The most recent award, a highly competitive $15 million construction – or CO6 – grant, comes from NIH’s National Center for Research Resources to address critical improvements to NJMS’ research facilities. The funding is part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 which provides an unprecedented $8.2 billion in federal stimulus funding to support and advance scientific research. The CO6 grant was coordinated through NJMS’ Research Office under the direction of Dr. William C. Gause, senior associate dean for research at NJMS.
Also this month, Dr. Abraham Pinter, of the Public Health Research Institute at NJMS, was awarded a five-year consortium grant of $15.9 million by the NIH for HIV vaccine development.
Dr. Pinter is among an elite group of researchers worldwide who are seeking to develop a vaccine that could prevent HIV infection. His research focuses on identifying the mechanisms by which HIV eludes the immune response, identifying new sites that are effective neutralization targets and learning how to efficiently elicit antibodies against such targets by vaccination.
Members of Dr. Pinter’s lab in the PHRI who are participating in the study include Dr. Chavdar Krachmarov and Dr. Aymeric DeParseval. Dr. Pinter will also be joined on this project by researchers at the Wits Health Consortium in South Africa, the University of Washington in Seattle, Tulane University in New Orleans, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Current active NIH awards at NJMS total $76 million, $30 million of which come from stimulus funding. The funds support 175 research programs, covering a wide variety of NJMS’ areas of excellence including cancer; neuroscience; immunity; infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV; aging; and cardiovascular disease, among others.
About UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School:Founded in 1954 as the Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry, UMDNJ—New Jersey Medical School was the state’s first medical school. Today, it is part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. NJMS has four mission areas: education, research, clinical care, and community outreach. It has 21 academic departments and more than 60 centers and institutes. In addition to offering the MD degree to its students, NJMS also offers, MD/PhD, MD/MPH, and MD/MBA degrees through collaborations with other institutions of higher education.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
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