Washington University School of Medicine has ramped up applications for federal medical research grants, after the federal stimulus significantly increased funding for grants through the National Institutes of Health.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) increased funding for biomedical research grants through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $10 billion over two fiscal years. The roughly estimated $20 billion per year available for biomedical research projects from the NIH has thus increased by around 25 percent to about $25 billion per year.

This April, the medical school filed a total of 615 grants. By the same time last year, the school had filed only 174 grants.

“This stark increase in the number of grant applications is directly a result of the passage of the ARRA,” said Jennifer Lodge, associate dean for research at the School of Medicine.

According to Lodge, most of the school’s research grants come from the NIH.

“We received about $450 [million] to $470 million total in funding in a fiscal year, and approximately $350 million is granted by the NIH,” Lodge said. “The rest comes from organizations like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.”

Faculty usually apply for research grants individually or through program projects, for which a team of faculty members apply together. Lodge pointed out that the greater number of the grants applied for are individual based.

The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science and the Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research are examples of institutions at the University that recently received federal grants.

According to Lodge, the medical school has tallied about $40 million in grant money from the ARRA funding as of last week. The funding is distributed over approximately 140 awarded grants. Since the ARRA was passed, the medical school has sent out anywhere from 650 to 800 grant applications for the ARRA funding.

“The competition is very intense and competitive,” Lodge said. “Regular NIH grants have a payline of about 10 to 12 percent. The payline is the amount of grants awarded. The ARRA funding payline may well be lower than that number.”

Lodge noted that there has been a widely positive response from faculty members in reaction to the ARRA and the resulting increase in funding.

“The faculties see the ARRA and the increased funding as an opportunity to expand research,” Lodge said. “This presents opportunities for new research projects as well as the expansion of existing ones.”

Lodge said she believes that the ARRA and the increased research funding will stimulate the economy because many labs will now have enough money to hire new lab technicians and new employees while still keeping the existing ones.

“In a time where companies are laying off workers, the ARRA is allowing the good scientists to be employed during this economic crisis,” Lodge said. “The ARRA plays a role in creating a more vibrant and alive economy.”

The ARRA was signed into law by President Obama last February. It is an effort to jumpstart the economy in the aftermath of the economic recession.

The ARRA is worth $787 billion altogether and includes federal tax cuts and expansion of unemployment benefits, as well as domestic spending in education, health care and infrastructure, including the energy sector.

$8.9 billion went toward scientific research. The National Science Foundation received $3 billion and the Energy Department received $2 billion.

Under the ARRA, the NIH received $8.2 billion in extramural funding to provide support and advancement of scientific research. The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a division of the NIH, received $1 billion to support extramural construction, repairs and alterations in support of all NIH-funded research institutions and $300 million for shared instrumentation and other capital equipment to support all NIH activities.

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Tags: American REcover and Reinvestment Act, grants, Jennifer Lodge, washington university school of medicine

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