IU medical school lands record NIH funding in 2023
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The Indiana University School of Medicine landed more than $243 million in funding last year from the National Institutes of Health, a record amount, up 27% over a year earlier.
The grants covered a wide array of medical research, from AIDS to opioid-use disorder. Five of the top 10 grants were for studying Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative disease for which there is no known cure.
That ranked the Indianapolis-based medical school 29th in the country for landing NIH funding. The NIH is the lead federal agency responsible for biomedical and public health research. Its grants are considered among the most distinguished funding for medical researchers.
“The NIH is the gold standard of medical research,” Dr. Jay Hess, the medical school’s dean, said in written remarks this week. “The increase we’ve seen in NIH funding year after year demonstrates the quality and importance of the work happening at the IU School of Medicine and helps move us toward our goal of being ranked in the top 10 NIH-funded public medical schools by 2030.”
The rankings were tallied by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, which tracks NIH grants. It covered the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2023.
The top three medical schools in the nation for landing NIH grants during this period were University of California San Francisco ($700.3 million), Washington University St. Louis ($583.6 million) and University of Pennsylvania ($579.8 million), according to Blue Ridge, based in Horse Shoe, North Carolina.
Five IU School of Medicine departments ranked in the top 15 among all U.S. medical schools for 2023 NIH funding, including the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics (ranked fifth), the Department of Pediatrics (ranked ninth), the Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science (ranked 12th) and the radiology and imaging sciences and radiation oncology departments, which are combined in Blue Ridge calculations (ranked together at 15th).
“As a national leader in NIH-funded research, our faculty and researchers are improving and saving lives in Indiana and around the world,” IU President Pamela Whitten said in written remarks. “This growing portfolio of NIH research is a testament to our world-class faculty at the School of Medicine and across IU.”
IU School of Medicine is the largest medical school in the United States, with about 1,440 medical students and more than 700 students in doctoral, master and other programs. It is comprised of five basic science departments and 20 clinical departments.