Ways Vanderbilt researchers are using $87.2 million in grants

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By Natalia Mielczarek
February 25, 2010

A hospital patient’s life is saved because of an alert from an ER nurse to the doctor, warning about a serious infection.

That’s just one example of how Vanderbilt University researchers are using stimulus money to develop solutions for medical and other problems.

So far, about 190 researchers called “principal investigators” at Vanderbilt have been involved in projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, university officials said.

More concretely, 194 grants totaling $87.2 million have been awarded through the stimulus bill, with hopes to boost the economy by creating additional jobs.

The National Institutes of Health alone gave out 177 grants to about 165 lead researchers at Vanderbilt’s Schools of Medicine and Engineering, the College of Arts & Science and Peabody College, totaling $70.4 million, officials said.

“What Nashville has in its community is one of the premiere universities in the country, simply put,” said Dennis Hall, vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school at Vanderbilt.

“We’ve had success in attracting funding, even without the stimulus money. It’s a combination of careful hiring and having created a culture in which we ask people to pursue these opportunities,” he said.

The projects range widely, from a grant to evaluate sensory integration therapy, a widely used but controversial method to improve communication skills in children with autism, a study of children who are consistently victimized by their peers to support for the Nurse Faculty Loan program that helps support the Ph.D. program in nurse science.

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