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UC Davis School of Medicine receives record amount of NIH funding for second year in a row

Blue Ridge ranks medical school among nation’s best for research funding

(SACRAMENTO)

In its 2022 ranking, the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research has placed UC Davis School of Medicine among the nation’s leading medical schools for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. It ranked the school 32nd nationally - one spot higher than last year.

This comes as the medical school breaks its previous record for NIH research funding, with more than $200 million in grants.

“Yet again, the UC Davis School of Medicine’s extraordinary research teams have achieved record high NIH funding and increased our school’s national ranking,” said Susan Murin, interim dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine. “We are grateful to our pioneering researchers across all disciplines who are discovering pathways to new treatments and cures and helping us deliver tomorrow’s health care today.”

UC Davis School of Medicine Departments in the Top 20

This year, nine School of Medicine departments ranked in the top 20 nationally in their respective fields. They included:

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Sergey Stavisky, assistant professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery, won an NIH grant to understand and restore speech production using an intracortical brain-computer interface.

NIH funds research across diseases and lifespan

Thanks to the NIH funds, UC Davis researchers are designing and testing therapies for many diseases for patients across different age groups. These include both common and rare conditions. The grants fuel cutting-edge research, such as learning about autism changes over time, developing new ways to diagnose and treat different types of cancers, and studying dementia in people aged 90 and above.

“Research funding translates into tomorrow’s discoveries, insight and products that can offer a brighter future for our local and global community,” said Kim E. Barrett, vice dean for research and distinguished professor of physiology and membrane biology. “We are proud of our research programs that address a diverse range of health and medical needs, often bringing together experts across disciplines to collaborate on groundbreaking discoveries.”

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Rachel Whitmer, associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, is the principal investigator on a $25 million NIH grant to study brain health and dementia. 

The NIH also provides significant support to the world-class UC Davis centers, including the Clinical and Translational Science Center, the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the MIND Institute.

The current development of Aggie Square is expected to double the school’s research space and provide additional resources to its research community. “Aggie Square will further advance the School of Medicine’s trajectory of increased funding and national leadership,” Murin noted.

Learn about the exciting research projects at UC Davis School of Medicine and on-going clinical trials.