The National Institutes of Health has awarded a total of $35M in grants to Morgan State University for academic research efforts including training and the establishment of an innovation center. An amount of $16.9M will go to the second phase of a program that aims to train biomedical researchers, NIH said Friday.
This effort is known as A Student-Centered, Entrepreneurship Development or ASCEND. The university will use $14.2M of the grants to build a research center that would support the development of medical applications for Baltimore citizens.
The center, known as RCMI@Morgan, will pursue laboratory-based and behavioral research to address urban health disparities such as HIV and poverty-associated gene expression. The remaining fraction amounting to $3.7M would finance other research efforts at the biology and chemistry departments within Morgan’s School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.
“The grant awards we have received were made possible by the collaboration of more than 25 hardworking faculty and staff members committed to bringing in the resources needed for these important research initiatives,†said Hongtao Yu, SCMNS’ dean.
