Research funding at Carolina remains robust

When Howard McLeod joined the Eshelman School of Pharmacy faculty in 2006, the University gained the expertise of an internationally recognized researcher in the relationship between genetics and responsiveness to drugs used in cancer treatments.

With the scientist came his ability to secure funding for this cutting-edge research.

In turn, McLeod acquired the resources of a renowned research university that has historically supported research with a potential to make a difference in people’s lives.

It is a win-win partnership in which success helps breed success.

Research funding accounts for about one-third of the University’s total revenue. Even in a period of flat funding nationally, Carolina faculty members are among the leaders in attracting federal and other funding for research. In fact, Carolina set records in research grants and contracts the past two fiscal years, nearly double the amount received a decade ago.

Last year’s $678.2 million total was an 11 percent increase over the record-setting $610 million received the previous year. Further, more than half of the 2008 total showed a 13 percent gain in grants and contracts awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“There are very few universities that can make those claims,” said Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development. “It shows that we’re doing extremely well, even against the best of folks.”

While the School of Medicine typically accounts for the lion’s share of research funding – attracting $356.8 million of last year’s total – disciplines across the spectrum are vital to the University’s aggregate success.

As an example, Waldrop points to the Carolina Population Center, which last year landed a $181 million grant, the University’s largest ever, to continue its efforts to evaluate health, poverty and gender programs worldwide.

And the new collaboration among the School of Information and Library Science, the Renaissance Computing Institute and Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) – based at the University of California-San Diego Super Computing Center – brings together nationally prominent researchers to address the preservation and storage of digital information.

Even in today’s dour economic climate, Carolina’s research funding is 11 percent ahead of the tally at this time last year, Waldrop said, and NIH funding has contributed to that marker.

A three-year comparison of NIH funding at Carolina and Duke University shows the gap closing significantly, he said. In 2005, Duke was ahead by $94 million, but since has dropped 10 percent while Carolina has climbed 13 percent, closing the gap to a little more than $20 million in 2008.

Interdisciplinary research
Carolina’s track record helps attract faculty members like McLeod, who came here because of a culture that encourages researchers to reach across disciplines.

“As a researcher, you make certain levels of contribution based on your science, but taking that up a notch requires using other resources,” he said. “UNC has so many schools and departments that want to work with you to help you accomplish your goals. I wanted to work in a place with that philosophy, where the mission is bigger than one person.”

McLeod is the Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor of Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy and director of the UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. He also holds appointments in the School of Medicine and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Pharmacogenomics explores how information in an individual’s genes influences how that person responds to specific drugs. The interdisciplinary institute is working to develop individualized cancer therapies by bringing together researchers in nursing, pharmacy, medicine, business, law and journalism, with others from companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and LabCorp.

Carolina’s emphasis on fostering such multidisciplinary endeavors has paid off, not only in recruiting and retaining top-rated faculty members who generate new knowledge, but also in encouraging research to expand in directions that have been well funded.

“We haven’t changed the way we go after research funding,” Waldrop said. “Collaboration is something we’ve always done as well as anyone, and NIH in particular is geared toward collaborative efforts. So this isn’t a change for us; it’s an expansion.”

Many of the biggest questions in science require expertise beyond one person or one laboratory, something funding agencies increasingly recognize, he said.

For example, Carolina landed more grants than any other university as a result of the 2002 NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, which provided a framework for NIH priorities and identified ways to maximize its impact on the progress of medical research.

“Across the board, our faculty have a knack for finding the leading edge of their respective disciplines and doing the kind of work that’s valued and supported,” Waldrop said.

Cancer research
Enhancing that success is the impact of the University Cancer Research Fund (UCRF), approved by the N.C. General Assembly in 2007 to help propel the University, through the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, to national leadership in cancer research and patient care. The legislature allocated $25 million in 2007, $40 million in 2008 and $50 million in 2009 for the fund.

Already, the results are transformative. Because of new initiatives in cancer research, the University has recruited more than 30 people to join the 425-plus faculty, staff and trainees who are partially supported by UCRF on projects to help unravel cancer’s mysteries and fight the disease in all its forms.

Newly recruited people represent specialties ranging from adult and pediatric bone marrow transplant to geriatric oncology, from oncologists in multiple disease groups to basic cancer geneticists, and from bioinformatics to drug discovery. Faculty searches are under way for population scientists, health outcomes and patient support researchers, and cell biologists and tumor virologists.

“The UCRF is allowing us to support innovative research in laboratory, clinical and population sciences across the University,” said Shelton Earp III, professor of medicine and pharmacology and Lineberger Center director.

“A large-scale project in breast cancer across 44 North Carolina counties and a 10,000-patient cancer survivorship cohort study are being launched. These will provide research opportunities at UNC and at other UNC campuses. Our goal is to make an impact in the lives of patients and their families through world-leading health cancer research.”

Federal stimulus
Although it is too soon to know the dollar impact the federal stimulus package will have for Carolina, some NIH funding will supplement grants that have already been funded, Waldrop said.

He also expects to see funding for challenge grants and for those that narrowly missed funding but were seen as scientifically meritorious. In addition, the package includes money for infrastructure and for renovating core facilities.

“If you calculate the same rate of success we’ve had so far in each of these categories, we should do extremely well,” Waldrop said.

Research is a team effort. “Beyond the science itself, it takes quite an infrastructure to manage the grants, take care of the animals, oversee compliance and coordinate the many other things that have to happen at the department, school and campus levels,” he said.

In fact, administrators expect the stimulus package to create a need for additional jobs to support the University’s increasing research efforts.