In recent years, the University of Memphis has received acclaim for its research efforts, with the school being named a top-tier research university by the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education in December 2021.
The U of M, however, isn’t the only local organization doing major exploration and investigation. According to MBJ research, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is the second-largest research institution in the Memphis area, ahead of U of M and behind St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
And UTHSC has just had another record year.
UTHSC's research playbook
A press release shows that UTHSC scored $132.9 million in grant and contract awards in FY 2022, about a $6.3 million increase from the $126.7 million it earned in FY 2021. It’s the sixth straight year UTHSC has seen growth in grant and contract awards, and represents a 56% jump from the $85 million it earned in FY 2017.
“Despite the reshaping of the academic world by the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid major ongoing clinical reorganizations and hospital realignments for clinical care and graduate medical education, our researchers leaned into the challenge to continue delivering innovative work and providing solutions to improve the health of all Tennesseans,” said Steve Goodman, Ph.D., UTHSC’s vice chancellor for research, in the release.
More than half of the awarded funds came from federal sources, and the faculty of all six colleges and all of UTHSC's four campuses — in Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville — broke records in multiple categories, including grant proposal count by fiscal year and quarter.
The success stems, in part, from the UTHSC Operational Strategic Plan for Research playbook, which has led to the creation of statewide initiatives and its Collaborative Research Network (CORNET). The CORNET program encourages collaboration with other institutions, and over the past six years, it’s led to over $30 million in extramural research awards. UTHSC’s research efforts were also bolstered by the Clinical Trials Network of Tennessee (CTN2), which earned $9.8 million in research contracts and awards in FY 2022, and have received more than $21.5 million in awards since 2018.
Research variety at UTHSC
Other dollars came from an array of faculty members, who have a variety of focuses.
For example, Colleen Jonsson, Ph.D., the director of the UTHSC Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL) and the Institute for the Study of Host Pathogen Systems, received a $3.21 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to upgrade the RBL’s equipment and infrastructure.
Ken Ataga, Ph.D., the Plough Foundation Chair in Sickle Cell Disease, was awarded $3.2 million from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, for a project focused on building AI that can predict progression of chronic kidney disease in sickle cell patients.
And Gabor Tigyi, Ph.D., the Harriet Van Vleet Endowment Professor in the Department of Physiology; and Sue Chin Lee, Ph.D., another professor in the department, were awarded $3.16 million from the National Cancer Institute, to develop a drug that boosts the immune system response in cancer patients to destroy tumor cells.
