IU School of Medicine lands $215M in NIH funding
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The Indiana University School of Medicine landed $214.8 million in total funding last year from the National Institutes of Health, just narrowly missing another record.
Five of the top 10 research studies that received the most NIH funding at the medical school were for Alzheimer’s disease or brain aging, one of the school’s top priorities.
Other top grants covered a wide range of medical projects from gene therapy for hemophilia A to setting up an epidemiology database to evaluate AIDS in east Africa.
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.
“This funding represents balanced excellence in research within the school as our physicians and scientists across all specialties continue to better understand and treat some of the most difficult and complicated health challenges,” Dr. Jay Hess, dean of the IU School of Medicine, said in written remarks.
Last year’s NIH funding to Indiana University School of Medicine represents a dip of about 0.6% from 2021 funding. Last year, the medical school landed more than $217 million from NIH, a record amount for the sixth year in a row.
Overall, IU School of Medicine ranked 14th in NIH funding for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 among public medical schools in the country, the same as a year earlier.
The school’s top-funded study, with $9.8 million awarded last year, was for studying genetic mutations in mice brains to better understand Alzheimer’s disease, led by Bruce Lamb, executive director of the Stark Neurosciences Research Institute and professor of Alzheimer’s disease research at the medical school.
In second place, with funding of $7.4 million, was a study at the medical school’s Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery Center, led by Alan Palkowitz, a former Eli Lilly and Co. research chemist. The center addresses challenges in discovering new therapeutic targets and drugs for the disease.
In third place was $6.1 million for the school’s National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias, led by Dr. Tatiana Foroud.
The medical school said its Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics was ranked No. 6 in the nation last year for NIH funding up from No. 8 in 2021. Other IU departments ranking in the top 25 among all U.S. medical schools for NIH funding were pediatrics (No. 7), biostatistics and health data science (No. 10), obstetrics and gynecology (No. 11) and anatomy, cell biology and physiology (No. 14).
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.