NIH award strengthens pioneering work in cystic fibrosis at Dartmouth's School of Medicine

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $5.9 million grant to support an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Lung Biology Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

For the past 10 years, COBRE funding has supported the Center's work, which has contributed not only to our understanding of cystic fibrosis and to the development of patented and patent-pending therapeutic approaches for treating the disease, but to other chronic lung diseases. Lung disease is the third most frequent cause of death in the United States.

Directed by Principal Investigator Bruce Stanton, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Geisel, the Lung Biology Center draws on the expertise and dedication of more than 100 faculty, students, and research associates working in 32 laboratories.

"Continued federal funding for the Lung Biology Center is very important to the Geisel School of Medicine and I applaud Bruce Stanton for his leadership," says Duane Compton, PhD, senior associate dean for research and professor of biochemistry at Geisel. "He has built a center that translates the best basic science into clinical application, and which also supports core facilities that sustain our researchers."

With the federal budget sequester taking a toll on biomedical research nationally, this five-year grant award reflects recognition of the quality of the medical research being done at Dartmouth, and provides the resources necessary to support the core services and pilot programs that will enable the Center to continue its work.

"The Lung Biology Center has spearheaded the development and mentoring of a cadre of physician-scientists engaged in cystic fibrosis research," says Stanton. "Their approaches are closely aligned with the goals of the Dartmouth SYNERGY Program in Clinical and Translational Science, which focuses on moving therapeutic advances from the research bench to the patient's bedside."

"This NIH grant demonstrates the strength of Geisel's overall research enterprise, and the excellent discovery taking place around cystic fibrosis and other chronic lung diseases," says Wiley "Chip" Souba, MD, MBA, ScD, dean of Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine. "While the sequester is forcing research cuts at many universities, research funding to the medical school just reached an all-time high, with $140 million in total grant funding for fiscal year 2013."

The Lung Biology Center is one of four Dartmouth Centers receiving COBRE support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Institutional Development Award Program (IDeA). The others include Immunology, Quantitative Biomedical Sciences, and Molecular Epidemiology. All COBRE programs share expertise and experience with each other, with the New Hampshire-INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence), and with partner programs at the University of Vermont and the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine.

The IDeA program builds research capacities in states that historically have had low levels of NIH funding by supporting basic, clinical, and translational research; faculty development; and infrastructure improvements.