PROVIDENCE - Roger Williams Medical Center announced today that it has been awarded an $11.8 million grant to study tissue repair, with specific focus on the role of adult stem cells in the healing process.
The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the largest ever awarded to RWMC. The grant is a renewal of an earlier Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award. The medical center hopes the new grant will help establish it as a major site for the study of tissue repair.
“This NIH award recognizes the value of this important research conducted by Dr. Vincent Falanga and his colleagues,” said Kenneth H. Belcher, RWMC president and CEO, in a statement. “The environment for grants of this nature has grown increasingly competitive.”
Over the past several years, the NIH has awarded seven COBRE grants - including two to Roger Williams - to Rhode Island-based institutions. In September 2003, Roger Williams received a $13.3 million COBRE grant for the study of bone marrow stem cells. Researchers at Roger Williams have focused on tissue repair and regeneration.
The grant announced today is directed at new approaches to tissue repair, its biology and therapeutic opportunities.
“Our collective goal is to better understand tissue repair and the important role stem cells play in that process,” said Falanga, who will lead a multidisciplinary team that includes investigators from the fields of surgery, medicine, pathology, dermatology and hematology.
“This research is especially relevant to Rhode Island, which has a significant percentage of elderly citizens.”
Roger Williams Medical Center, with nearly 1,400 employees, provides a broad range of adult health services to residents of Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. The hospital is an affiliate of the Boston University School of Medicine and of Elmhurst Extended Care. Additional information is available at www.rwmc.org.
