Montefiore in the News

November 30, 2018—BRONX, NY—Capping off another successful research year,faculty members at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of Montefiore, received $172 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in federal fiscal year 2018. (Einstein also received an additional $5.4 million from select federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which is administered through the NIH). Investigators will use the funding to pursue a wide range of basic, translational and clinical research and training projects, including projects involving epigenetics, autoimmune disease, and neurosurgery.

Dean Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D.“As this year’s NIH funding demonstrates, our researchers continue to secure significant grants in a very competitive environment,” said Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean at Einstein. “Faculty members—from our most junior to our most established—have successfully leveraged the resources at Montefiore and Einstein to open new areas of investigation and enhance existing areas of strength, propelling discoveries that will improve health. It’s another impressive showing from our remarkably productive research community.”

Among the year’s notable grants are those that continue major research institutes and projects:

• $25 million for the Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Einstein and Montefiore (Harry Shamoon, M.D., Marla Keller, M.D., Paul Marantz, M.D., M.P.H.)
• $17 million to expand the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes(ECHO) Study (Judy Aschner, M.D.)

Other grants support new or continuing training programs:

• $3.3 million to establish a Learning Health System (LHS) Center of Excellence, which will train the next generation of LHS researchers (Diane McKee, M.D., Michael Rinke, M.D., Ph.D., Chinazo Cunningham, M.D., M.S.)
• $8.3 million to continue Einstein’s Medical Student Training Program (M.D.-Ph.D. program) through its 49th year. (Myles Akabas, M.D., Ph.D.)
• $4 million for a Neurosurgeon Research Career Development Program (Emad Eskandar, M.D.)
• $3.4 million to sustain the Bronx-Einstein Training in Teaching and Research (BETTR) program, which provides teacher training for postdoctoral fellows (Dianne Cox, Ph.D., Barbara Birshtein, Ph.D.)
• Seven faculty members received their first “K grant,” an early career development grant that enables recipients to conduct independent research and eventually compete for major grant support.

Among the major grants for investigator-initiated research projects are:

• Three grants totaling $7.1 million to study colorectal cancer (Leonard Augenlicht, Ph.D., Winfried Edelmann, Ph.D., Matthew Gamble, Ph.D.)
• $4.1 million to uncover autoimmune triggers (Laura Santambrogio, M.D., Ph.D)
• $4 million to study the immune evasion of m. tuberculosis (John Chan, M.D., Steven Porcelli, M.D., Michael Berney, Ph.D.)
• $3.6 million for a comprehensive study of epigenetics in aging (John Greally, D.Med, Ph.D.)
• $3.5 million to better understand how T cells behave in autoimmune diseases (Teresa DiLorenzo, Ph.D., Steve Almo, Ph.D.)
• $3.4 million to study epigenetic programming for childhood obesity (Maureen Charron, Ph.D., Mamta Fuloria, M.B.B.S.)
• $3.3 million to evaluate their noninvasive test for lung cancer (Jan Vijg, Ph.D., Simon Spivack, M.D., M.P.H.)
• $3.3 million to examine why HIV infection increases cardiovascular risk (Qibin Qi, Ph.D.)
• $3.2 million to investigate HPV and cervical cancer in HIV-positive women (Howard Strickler, M.D., Robert Burk, M.D.)