The University Medical School's Cell Migration Consortium received a five-year, $35.7 million grant extension from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a division of the National Institute of Health. The additional funding brings the total NIH financial support for the program to over $73 million.
The Consortium, directed by Medical School researchers Alan "Rick" Horwitz and J. Thomas Parsons, is now in the sixth year of a 10-year research cycle. The Consortium promotes the study of the cell movement throughout the body, in an effort to create a repository of knowledge about the biological process for use in further scientific research.
"The program doesn't address one specific problem but instead creates a toolkit for work in other areas," Horwitz said.
According to Parsons, the study of cell migration is important in many fields of biological and medical research. "Cells crawl in your body all the time, so cell migration is a part of normal body activity," Parsons said. "But it is also a part of the disease process such as in cancer, inflammation, heart disease and other inappropriate migration of cells."
The Consortium includes 40 researchers at 23 institutions around the world, including Harvard Medical School; Oxford University; University of California, San Francisco; and Johns Hopkins Medical School. Consortium researchers at the University head the program by collecting and organizing data and publishing the work in print and on a Web site that is open to the public.
According to Jeremy Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the program received the extension because of its past work and its potential for future progress.
Read More
PBS NewsHour correspondent speaks on bringing humanity to international conflict
By Grace Little | YesterdaySchifrin's work exploring Putin’s Russia, his coverage of COVID-19 and his reporting in Afghanistan and Ukraine have earned him various accolades.
Spring meal swipe drive aims to tackle food insecurity at the University
By Nicolas Biernacki | YesterdayU.Va. Dine facilitated the drive by converting each meal swipe donated by a student into one pound of food that is then donated to the CFP.
Winsome Earle-Sears talks higher education in first U.Va. event of the campaign
By Ford McCracken | 3 days agoA Jamaican immigrant and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Earle-Sears is the first female lieutenant governor of Virginia,
