The College of Medicine at Ohio State received $367.7 million of research funding in 2022. Credit: Katherine Simon | For The Lantern
Ohio State’s College of Medicine secured a record-setting $367.7 million of research funding in 2022, over a $60 million increase from 2021.
Peter Mohler, Ohio State’s vice president of research, said the funding comes from faculty and students applying for grants for research projects. Grants can come from the federal government, the state or non-profit organizations, he said.
“What we’ve seen this last year is that our teams of faculty, staff and students were incredibly successful in getting these awards, and so the money that comes in on these awards will be used to fund groundbreaking research in a host of different research areas,” Mohler said.
According to a release from the Wexner Medical Center, the College of Medicine’s research portfolio for 2022 includes 98 new awards that are over $1 million each as well as over 3,000 total active awards.
“About a fourth of the awards that are coming into the College of Medicine and the Wexner Medical Center represent completely new areas of research that have been funded for the first time at Ohio State,” Mohler said. “It’s exciting because it allows our team to really explore emerging areas of research.”
Dean of the College of Medicine Dr. Carol Bradford said the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded the college a $16.1 million grant to study treatments for traumatic brain injuries and a $14.6 million grant to study the safety of gene therapy for children born with rare genetic disorders.
Bradford also said the College of Medicine received a $17.1 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to create a knowledge bank to understand safe medical practices for children and pregnant or lactating women.
“Those are just three very large grants that were awarded this past year to the College of Medicine, and those are examples of how the awards are for very specific projects, and I think very innovative projects,” Bradford said.
Bradford said research funding affects the College of Medicine’s rankings, which influences the groups of students and faculty that join the university.
“We continue to move up the rankings,” Bradford said. “Our medical school is ranked the 30th best in the entire country. Research funding is actually one of the specific criteria for rankings by U.S. News and World Report for the best medical schools for research.”
Bradford said the College of Medicine’s National Institutes of Health funding has doubled since 2018, due to the help of Ohio State students and faculty.
“That’s because we’re recruiting fabulous scientists, top-tier scientists and clinicians, and we’re also mentoring our junior faculty and helping them get their first grant,” Bradford said.
Bradford said the goal is to start research studies in a timely manner in order to be able to renew a grant at the end of its term.
“There is an opportunity to demonstrate to the funders of the extraordinary work we’ve done and write a new grant to continue on that important science,” Bradford said.
