OU HSC gets diabetes grant

Transcript Staff

OKLAHOMA CITY — To bolster diabetes research in Oklahoma, especially in Native American populations, the National Institutes of Health Monday awarded an $11 million grant to the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

This new grant brings to more than $20 million the amount achieved in NIH funding by OU researchers in the past few months.

The new grant provides funding to improve research and intervention for diabetes in Native Americans. Principal investigator is Dr. Jian-Xing Ma, and co-principal investigator is Dr. Timothy Lyons, joined by senior investigators Dr. Jim Tomasek and Dr. Chris Aston, who will work with a team that includes five junior investigators and their mentors.

Oklahoma ranks at the top in the nation in the number of people with diabetes per capita. More than 200,000 people in Oklahoma are diabetic (about 10 percent) and at least 600,000 more are pre-diabetic. Among some of the state’s American Indian communities the rate can be as high as 40 percent.

The National Center for Research Resources, a part of the National Institutes of Health, is providing the $11 million Institutional Development Award, or IDeA grant, through a program designed to improve the competitiveness of investigators in states that historically have not received significant levels of competitive NIH research funding.

“By bridging the research funding gap in IDeA states, we are building innovative research teams, strengthening partnerships with the community, and leveraging the power of shared resources — ultimately improving the nation’s health,” said National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “It is through this multidisciplinary approach that we can reduce health disparities and improve our disease prevention efforts in states that have limited resources.”

Through the IDeA program, NCRR supports institutions and communities in 23 states and Puerto Rico with grants that fund multiple areas of biomedical research and reach out to unique populations. Each grant fulfills five goals:

• To build and strengthen the research capabilities at participating institutions by hiring staff and purchasing research equipment;

• To support faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students;

• To provide research opportunities for undergraduate students;

• To develop outreach activities; and

• To enhance the science and technology knowledge of the state’s workforce.

Each award includes a principal investigator with established credentials relevant to the center’s research theme; three to five individual research projects that share that theme and are supervised by a single junior investigator; and a development and mentoring plan that will prepare these investigators to secure competitive federal research funding.

“For states to compete on a national level for federal research dollars, we need to lay the foundation at the undergraduate level as well as partner with the local community to effect change,” said NCRR Director Barbara M. Alving, M.D. “By funding ‘intellectual development’ and enhancing research infrastructure in these IDeA states, we are producing a pipeline of homegrown researchers who will become future leaders in competing for these federal dollars.”