San Diego State University researchers have received four highly competitive Challenge Grants from the National Institutes of Health, it was announced today. Additionally, psychology professor Linda Gallo received a $2.4 million ARRA “Grand Opportunity” award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
 
In total, SDSU has received 45 grants totaling $11.5 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through October.

Keeping the research enterprise active

“The ARRA has offered SDSU’s faculty the opportunity to generate further support for their research programs, and they have taken full advantage of it,” said Tom Scott, vice president for research.  “These funds will do more than advance individual research projects; they will provide the resources SDSU needs to keep the entire research enterprise active during a particularly turbulent period in state support.”

The Challenge Grants are a competitive component of NIH’s stimulus program and attracted 21,000 proposals nationwide.  The four ARRA Challenge Grants of approximately $1 million each awarded to SDSU include:

• Mark Sussman (biology), who leads the SDSU Heart Institute, to continue his work on engineering cardiac progenitor cells to enhance myocardial regeneration.
• Richard Hofstetter (political science) and Mel Hovell (public health) to evaluate networking and alcohol consumption among recent immigrants.
• John Clapp (social work) and Susan Woodruff (social work) for a screening/intervention program for Latino and non-Latino white drug users from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA).
• James Lange’s (Student Health Services) award will be used to develop brief communications about beverage nutrition facts and alcohol content that individuals can use to monitor their consumption, motivate them to drink moderately and be required within bar and restaurant menus by future policies.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supporting ARRA programs that stimulate job creation and economic development related to biomedical and bio-behavioral research.  The awards SDSU professors have received will provide additional or continued employment for students and technicians and enhance the nation’s research portfolio.

Sociocultural factors and cardiovascular disease

Gallo’s $2.4 million “Grand Opportunity” award from NHLBI supports the first year of a two-year study of socio-cultural factors and cardiovascular disease risk in Hispanics. The grant will be shared between SDSU and several other university partners, including University of Miami, Northwestern University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A testament to the hard work of these and many other SDSU faculty researchers, the university was also named the No.1 small research university in the nation for the third consecutive year. The ranking is based on the faculty scholarly productivity index created by Academic Analytics.

Several of SDSU’s doctoral programs were also ranked, including five in the top ten of their field: mathematics education (No.2), clinical psychology (No.3), speech and hearing sciences (No.4), public health (No.7) and geography (No.9).

About the SDSU Research Foundation

Established in 1943, SDSU Research Foundation is a non-profit, auxiliary organization chartered to further the educational, research and community service objectives of San Diego State University. For more information, visit www.foundation.sdsu.edu.