Feinberg principal investigators secured a record-breaking $534 million in sponsored research funding and awards during the 2018-2019 fiscal year, a 10.2 percent increase in funding over 2018.
Notably, the awards during the year included a five-year, $46 million grant from The National Institutes of Health to renew the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute.
“This was a record year for Feinberg’s sponsored research awards. Our investigators put forward their best ideas in over $2.5 billion of proposals resulting in almost $540 million in awards, an amazing success rate,” said Rex Chisholm, PhD, associate vice dean for scientific affairs and graduate education and the Adam and Richard T. Lind Professor of Medical Genetics.
“This growth is likely to continue as we recruit into our new and renewed space resulting from the opening of the Simpson Querrey Research Center,” he added.
Roughly 28 percent of awarded funds were allocated towards total basic science department funding and 72 percent towards total clinical department funding. Of the total, $344 million was awarded from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Awards for individual grants totaled to 53 individual research fellowships (F awards), 61 career development awards (K awards) and 32 training grants (T awards).
Approximately 4,189 clinical trials and research studies were conducted at Feinberg in the 2018-2019 academic year, led by 652 principal investigators and 296 principal investigators on NIH grants. Additionally, a total of 66 patents and five new start-up companies were established within the last fiscal year alone.