SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 5, 2009) — Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have been awarded $29 million in grants to date resulting from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The stimulus grants are through the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.
Health Science Center faculty have received 57 grants through the Recovery Act for projects such as studies of cancers in HIV/AIDS, mood disorders research, bipolar illness prevention in Hispanic communities, dental implants in diabetic patients, a partnership to address physical activity among low-income Latina adolescent girls, the Southwest Brain Bank of brain tissue specimens for research, and use of the antibiotic rapamycin to retard age-related diseases.
Other projects seek to answer numerous research questions, including those with bearing on asthma, in vitro fertilization, inflammatory pain, skin cancer and functions of the brain.
The largest stimulus award announced to date by the Health Science Center — $5.2 million — will enable the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies to study whether rapamycin can retard age-related diseases and impact quality of life. The lead investigator is Arlan G. Richardson, Ph.D., director of the Barshop Institute, a premier Health Science Center research facility.
The second-largest grant — $3.1 million — will fund a practice-based research network to improve nursing. The lead investigator is Kathleen R. Stevens, R.N., M.S., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., director of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice (ACE) in the School of Nursing.
“Multidisciplinary teams of researchers in the Health Science Center’s schools have aggressively sought these federal grants and been quite successful,” said Brian Herman, Ph.D., vice president for research at the Health Science Center.
The Health Science Center is fourth in the state in number of awards from the Recovery Act, and the award number and total dollars to the institution’s faculty exceed the national average.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $668 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $36 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 25,600 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and other health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit www.uthscsa.edu.