New grants total $11M in stimulus funding

David Ledbetter, Woodruff Professor of Human Genetics in the School of Medicine, is working with colleague Christa Lese Martin, associate professor of human genetics, on work that will result in an international genomics database for autism and other developmental disorders. The work is one Emory project of many that is being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Emory scientists have earned 12 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Challenge Grants and six Grand Opportunity (GO) awards from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus) funding. The two-year grants total almost $11 million in the first year of funding and are among 153 grants totaling more than $53 million awarded to Emory researchers in the first year of stimulus funding.
           
Challenge Grants are part of a new initiative established by the NIH to stimulate advances in high-impact areas, such as genomics, regenerative medicine, health disparities, and disease prevention. GO awards focus on large projects aimed at creating resources useful to many researchers.
           
“Emory researchers’ success in attracting support in these competitive areas reflects their strengths in finding innovative ways to tackle problems in biomedical research, combined with the unique resources available here,” said David Stephens, vice president for research in Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

Examples of Emory Challenge/GO grants:

Regenerative medicine: With the aim of improving circulation in the limbs of people with peripheral artery disease, doctors will test whether a growth factor can nudge patients’ own bone marrow cells into repairing their arteries. Cardiologist Arshed Quyyumi is directing the first rigorous phase II clinical trial of this treatment. (GO)

Autism: Genetic studies of complex diseases, such as autism, are shifting toward examining copy number variations, or the loss or gain of small parts of the genome. Led by Emory geneticists David Ledbetter and Christa Lese Martin, a research consortium will create an international genomics database for autism and other developmental disorders. (GO)

Adult stem cells: An inherited form of muscular dystrophy appears to affect muscle stem cells. Understanding the disease may help pharmacologist Grace Pavlath and biochemist Anita Corbett unlock new therapies to bolster muscle repair. (Challenge)

Cancer nanotechnology: Tiny fluorescent gold particles that bind cancer cells may offer surgeons the ability to know whether they have removed all of a tumor during an operation. Shuming Nie, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, has played a leading role in developing this technology and is conducting tests of the particles’ toxicity and specificity. (GO)

Global public health: Working in Thailand, Barry Ryan and Anne Riederer, professors of environmental and occupational health in the Rollins School of Public Health, are improving methods for measuring the exposure to pesticides of infants. (Challenge)

HIV/AIDS: At Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Emory Vaccine Center, Rama Rao Amara, is testing therapies for reviving the immune system in monkeys infected with HIV’s cousin, Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV). In combination with antiretroviral drugs, this approach may lead to new treatments against HIV/AIDS. (GO)

Human genetics: Emory geneticist Madhuri Hegde is developing new techniques for detecting mutations leading to neuromuscular diseases whose techniques are expected to improve diagnosis of patients with muscular dystrophies. (Challenge)

Click here for a full list of Emory’s Challenge and GO awards.—Holly Korschun