By Elana Gordon
KANSAS CITY, Ks. – The University of Kansas Medical Center has been awarded $20 million from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to build up its clinical research projects.
Dr. Richard Barohn heads the center's institute for clinical and translational research, which works to translate laboratory discoveries into treatments and cures. He says KU has always done a lot of good basic science research, but it's only been in the last 10 to 15 years that the center's placed a real emphasis on the clinical research side - that includes things like the development of drug and device therapies.
Dr. Barohn says this new NIH grant brings a big boost to those efforts.
"I think it's going to be huge," says Dr. Barohn. "I think we're going to be able train more investigators, we're going to be able to do more pilot studies to get more NIH grants."
KU is one of 60 universities to receive the five-year NIH grant, and plans to work with several area academic and health institutions on related projects.
Overall, KU gets about $67 million in annual funding from NIH.
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