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Posted 9/10/97
Case Western Reserve University is now among the top 25 colleges and universities nationally in total federal support for science and engineering research and development.
The latest study, which uses the federal fiscal year ending September 30, 1995, places CWRU as 25th, with nearly $127.8 million in funding in this category. This is up 28.4 percent from the 1994 federal fiscal year, when the University ranked 31st with $99.5 million.
The jump comes primarily from nearly $24.5 million more in support from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) -- almost all of it going to the School of Medicine.
Click here to view a table of CWRU's 1994 and 1995 funding from the top nine federal agencies.
The HHS increase accounts for 90 percent of the gain between the two years. HHS funding to CWRU was nearly $84 million in 1994 and more than $108 million in 1995, which represents more than 70 percent of all research support to CWRU annually.
"These research figures are a tribute to the faculty's hard work and talent," said Nathan Berger, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. "They also represent the environment here which encourages talented individuals to work across disciplinary and institutional lines, making it possible for us to develop highly competitive grant proposals."
The National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resources Studies carries out this Congressionally mandated survey each year. Download the R&D section of the 1995 SRS report via the NSF Web site at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/fedspt95/start.htm. (Select table B-13 from the list of Excel spreadsheets, or page ahead to that table within the "rank.pdf" file for Acrobat Reader.)
CWRU ranks 12th among private research universities in this funding category. (See accompanying chart.)
An increase in the average federal grant to researchers throughout campus has helped fuel CWRU's leap in federal R&D support. The average grant amount has risen from $150,000 to $175,000 within the past several years, according to James Kemp, associate director of research administration.
Several large grants to medical school researchers also have been an important factor. "We've brought in some fairly large contracts within the last 1 1/2 to 2 years," Kemp said. The two largest are for studies involving diabetes and tuberculosis.
A project led by principal investigator William Dahms, professor of pediatrics, received an initial five-year grant of $14 million for clinical trials involving nutrition and diabetes. Support comes from the National Institute of Digestive Diseases and Kidney Disorders, an arm of the National Institutes of Health. The study director is Saul Genuth, professor of medicine. The funding will support cooperative work with 27 research centers nationwide.
Total study support can reach $30 million over 10 years, according to Philip Corcoran, assistant director of research administration. The institute has earmarked this total support, but has distributed funds only for the first five years. If federal support reaches this total, it would become CWRU's largest award ever.
Dahms's project is a long-term study tracking diabetics, to better understand how the disease develops and affects patients. Some participants have been tracked for 15 years already in previous research, Corcoran said.
Jerrold Ellner is using a five-year contract for $18.9 million from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to establish CWRU's Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Research Unit (TBRU). The grant helps the unit conduct TB research with five other U.S. research schools and three international sites in Uganda, Brazil, and India.
At its launch in late 1994, the unit was the only one of its kind to receive NIH support. This award is CWRU's largest to date.
In testament to the center's strength, four major medical research meetings on tuberculosis were held in Cleveland within one week in July -- all timed to coincide with the unit's annual meeting. "The fact that the meetings are being held here is a sign of the scope and depth of research activities occurring here," said Ellner, professor of medicine and pathology and acting chair of medicine.
"There has been a huge surge of interest on the research side of tuberculosis. The results are apparent already with breathtaking advances in our understanding of the microbiology of the TB organism and the immunology of the host response," he added. "This may translate into more potent new drugs that will allow cure in less than six months. Even more exciting is the possibility that a truly effective vaccine can be developed to prevent TB."
Several research projects led by other medical school researchers received grant support (excluding indirect cost recovery) of more than $1 million each in the 1994-95 fiscal year:
* $2.9 million for Pamela Davis, assistant professor of pediatrics, for a variety of studies and training programs
* $7.3 million over five years ($1.1 million of it in this period) for Janice Douglas, professor of medicine, to investigate cellular mechanisms involved in hypertension
* $870,000 to Craig Elmets, director of the Skin Diseases Research Center, for skin cancer and other studies
* $715,000 to Pierluigi Gambetti, professor of pathology, for work on neurodegenerative diseases
* $1.1 million for Start LeGrice and $1. 4 million for Michael Lederman, both professors of infectious diseases, for AIDS studies
* $1.2 million for Regis McFadden, professor of pulmonary and critical care, for projects involved asthma and how exposure to cold affects the airway
* $1 million for Roland Moskowitz, professor medicine in rheumatology, for arthritis research
$1.5 million for Nanduri Prabhakar, professor of pulmonary and critical care, for a variety of respiratory studies
* $1.1 million for Urs Rutishauser, professor of genetics, for work on cell adhesion and genetic analysis of the nervous system
* $1.2 million for Antonio Scarpa, professor and chair of physiology and biophysics, for cardiovascular research
* $2.5 million for Peter Whitehouse, professor and director of the Alzheimer's Center, to support the center's projects
* $1.2 million for James Willson, professor of hematology/oncology and director of the Ireland Cancer Center, for several cancer studies
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