OU Health Sciences Center gets $20M research grant

The OU Health Sciences Center has received a $20 million grant to fund the work of young researchers interested in Oklahoma communities’ health problems.

Dr. Judith James, associate vice provost for clinical and translational science at OU Health Sciences Center, said the grant gives young researchers a way to start their careers in Oklahoma, which will encourage them to keep working in the state.

It also gives partners like tribes and rural communities access to researchers who are interested in working together on the most pressing problems in their areas, she said.

“It will allow our best and brightest investigators to stay here,” she said.

The exact projects aren’t set yet, but they likely will include: studying alternatives to opioids for chronic pain; the reasons why American Indians in Oklahoma live fewer years and have more chronic conditions, on average, than white Oklahomans; and ways to lower Oklahoma’s high infant mortality rate, according to OU Medicine spokeswoman April Wilkerson.

The health science center also is planning a pilot program that uses some of the grant for researchers who want to work with a community on one specific problem, Wilkerson said. For example, a town may have a high number of residents undergoing amputations due to diabetes, and a researcher could study why those patients aren’t getting the routine care that could prevent amputations — and come up with ways to address the problem, she said.

James, who also is chair of arthritis and clinical immunology at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, said it’s unusual to get a large grant that’s somewhat open-ended. Universities have to compete for the grants from the National Institutes of Health.

“Almost always, you’re given a little bit of money to work on one project,” she said.

This is the second time OU Health Sciences Center got this type of grant, James said.

The grant funded 28 young researchers in the previous five-year period, recruited 11 experienced scientists and developed a network of providers interested in projects to improve clinical care across the state, she said.

“They addressed everything from mechanisms of multiple sclerosis to how do we address obesity in children,” she said.