George Washington University receives two grants for medical and health research

The George Washington University today announced that it has received two grants totaling nearly $24.5 million dollars, the largest grant allocation the university has received in recent history.

"Receiving these grants, specifically on the same day, reaffirms that GW is making a serious and sustained impact in the research community," said Leo Chalupa, vice president of research. "Our growing profile in the science and research arena not only reflects positively on the institution but also on the caliber of our faculty and other resources."

The National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has awarded John Lachin, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics with the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS), almost $14 million for the Biostatistics Center for the continuation of the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and its Complications study (EDIC) project.

This study is the long-term follow up to the Diabetes and Control Complications Trial (DCCT) in which the epidemiology of diabetes interventions and complications are studied. The goal for the next five years is to accurately describe the long-term effects of glycemia and other risk factors on diabetes complications.

"This grant will allow for the continued follow up of a cohort of subjects with type 1 diabetes to evaluate the factors that contribute to the long term development of microvascular outcomes such as eye and kidney diseases and cardiovascular outcomes such as heart attacks in type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Lachin. "We hope that this will provide further insights into the role that high blood glucose levels plays in these complications."

The second grant, for almost $10.5 million, was awarded to George Washington University for the continuation of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) signature effort to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform. The Foundation has made the commitment to improve health care in 16 geographically, demographically, and economically diverse communities that together cover 12.5 percent of the U.S. population.

"We are pleased to continue the important work of AF4Q, which asks the people who get care, give care and pay for care to work together toward common, fundamental objectives to lead to better care," said Robert Graham, AF4Q's project director and a research professor of health policy with SPHHS. "After six years, AF4Q communities have built transformative partnerships, often where none existed before. In these 16 communities, data on quality, cost and patient experience measures are being collected and publicly reported, hospitals are improving care from the emergency department to the bedside, patients are playing a crucial part in transforming health care, and new models for care delivery and organization are being implemented."