UCI seeks near-record $30 million public health grant

[Guest guest]

UCI seeks near-record $30 million public health grant

http://blogs.ocregister.com/sciencedude/archives/2007/07/uci_seeks_ne

ar.html

BENCH TO BEDSIDE

UC Irvine is seeking a near-record $30 million from the National

Institutes of Health to help find ways to speed discoveries in the

laboratory into treatment for people. The money would be used to

improve and expand a campus clinic where UCI does human studies on

everything from heart disease and stroke to autism and cystic

fibrosis. The clinic also has been the site of drug trials for such

afflictions as colon cancer.

The NIH is awarding large grants to universities that can

improve " translational medicine, " one the biggest problem areas in

public health. NIH officials say there are times when the biomedical

research community fails to do such basic things as enroll enough

people in clinical trials. The agency is looking for ways to " re-

engineer " translational medicine and make the " bench-to-bedside "

process faster, more efficient and more effective.

This is UCI's third attempt to obtain a large NIH grant to expand

the university's work in translational medicine. If it succeeds, the

$30 million will become the second largest grant in campus history,

trailing only the $40 million UCI got in 2005 to establish the

Pacific-Southwest Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious

Diseases Research .