UMass Medical School getting research funding boosts during pandemic

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Medical School in Worcester

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UMass Medical School has received a major boost in federal and private research funding since the coronavirus pandemic began.

National Institutes of Health research funding to the Worcester school grew by 78% for the third quarter compared to a year ago, and grants and contracts from all funding sources grew up nearly half, the school said. Nearly $3 million in donations for faculty coronavirus research has also been secured since the pandemic began.

UMass Medical School, which is among the largest recipients in federal research funding in Massachusetts every year, received $399 million in grants and contracts from July through September, with NIH funding making up nearly $300 million — up from $168 million for the same period last year.

Much of the funding is aimed at the coronavirus pandemic.

A pair of NIH grants totaling $123-million will allow the school to administer diagnostic tests for coronavirus in a program known as RADx. That program was a byproduct of the school's point-of-care testing program development.

Most of the $3 million in private fundraising is dedicated to specific research, but more than $650,000 was unrestricted, allowing the Worcester school to quickly support the work researchers were looking to do. The school got 41 faculty proposals and chose 13, scoring them on scientific merit and relevance to understanding the virus and the disease it causes.

Among the projects funded are a clinical trial of convalescent plasma, stem cell-derived therapies, immunotherapy design, and programs mitigating the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations.

“This will advance the science to a position where investigators are able to apply for [National Institute of Health] or foundation funding armed with some preliminary data," Katherine Fitzgerald, who chaired the committee that evaluated pandemic research proposals, said in a statement.

UMass Medical School has received 17 donations of at least $25,000 to go toward coronavirus research.

Other areas of research are also receiving major funding boosts from the NIH, the school said. Those areas include $131 million for clinical and translational science, $23 million for molecular, cell and cancer biology, $21 million each for advanced therapeutic clusters and molecular medicine, and nearly $20 million for infectious disease and immunology.