NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The University of Michigan has reeled in $53 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to continue operations at its Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, or MICHR, which funds research grants, provides training and services to support translational science, and supports a biorepository.
The funding from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences will renew MICHR's Clinical and Translational Science Award for a second five-year term, UM said this week.
Most of the MICHR funding is used to support researchers through grants, stipends for scholars, and by providing access to research management support services.
The university said that it used its first CTSA grant to fund science, train researchers in clinical and translational science, fund pilot projects, provide infrastructure, recruit participants, and support more than 460 UM researchers engaged in 250 clinical trials. These resources also have helped researchers secure an additional $222 million in grants.
The new funding will continue to support those activities, and it will fund the biorepository where researchers can process and store DNA samples. The biorepository is located in the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology at the UM Traverwood facility, and it is a centralized resource for storing blood, urine, and DNA and RNA samples, and for downstream sample preparation.
"CTSAs provide critical infrastructure needed to strengthen the entire spectrum of NIH-supported clinical and translational research, including cool tools for clinical study management and data capture," said Josephine Briggs, acting director of NCATS' Division of Clinical Innovation, said in a statement.