BY Megan McRainey
The National Institutes of Health has awarded more than $31 million over five years — one of the largest NIH grants in Georgia history — to a partnership of Atlanta academic, research and health care institutions focused on accelerating the translation of laboratory discoveries into health care innovations for patients.
The partnership, named the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute, is led by Emory University, along with Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
The primary partner institutions, along with major collaborators, will match the NIH award in additional financial commitments, space, personnel and other support. Georgia collaborators include the Georgia Research Alliance, Kaiser Permanente of Georgia, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Georgia Bio (formerly the Georgia Biomedical Partnership) and Grady Memorial Hospital and Health System.
The award is part of a national clinical research consortium launched last year by the NIH to spur the transformation of clinical and translational research in the United States so that new treatments can be developed more efficiently and delivered more quickly to patients.
"This grant will bolster our research efforts and produce real solutions to improve the health of Georgia's citizens," said Gov. Sonny Perdue. "Georgia is a center for innovation and collaboration, and we will continue to seek out opportunities to capitalize on Georgia's resources and talent."
Each institution will contribute strengths to the partnership that will help create unique and valuable synergies. Emory is a national leader in health care and biomedical research and Georgia Tech is a national leader in biomedical engineering and the application of innovative systems engineering to health care solutions. Morehouse School of Medicine is a leading historically black institution that brings ethnic diversity to the biomedical research community, addresses health disparities through successful community engagement and serves as a pipeline for training minority investigators.
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