The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has been awarded $2 million in matching funds from the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative Fund (MEIF), administered by the Maryland Department of Commerce. The funds, totaling $4 million when combined with UMB qualified funding, will enable the establishment of three endowed research professorships, all within the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).
“These endowed professorships support research in very meaningful areas of public health. Attracting the most innovative researchers also enables us to maintain leadership and a competitive edge in critical areas of health sciences research,” UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, said.
“These matching grants will support some of the most significant areas for biomedical innovation, discovery, and commercialization — where Maryland is leading the way,” said Mark T. Gladwin, MD, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of UMSOM, and vice president for medical affairs, UMB. “This funding will enable us to build on our success in advancing xenotransplantation, discover innovative cancer therapies, and establish a new center to develop novel treatments for our warriors living with sickle cell disease in Maryland, Nigeria, and globally.”
(l-r) Bruce Jarrell, Mark Gladwin, Christine Lau, and Stuart Martin
To continue the school’s impact in xenotransplantation, commerce has awarded $750,000, matched by $750,000 in qualified funding from UMB, to support the Bartley P. Griffith, MD Professorship in Surgery, Transplantation, and Innovation in the Department of Surgery. The funding will allow UMSOM to recruit an internationally recognized surgeon-scientist and innovator specializing in cardiothoracic surgery and heart and lung transplantation, with a focus on new applications toward clinical use and potential commercialization.
“We are thrilled to have this new funding to give us a competitive edge to recruit a true innovator who can help us continue our world-class efforts to advance the field of heart and lung transplantation,” said Christine Lau, MD, MBA, the Dr. Robert W. Buxton Chair of Surgery and professor of surgery at UMSOM.
The Commerce Department also provided $500,000, matched by $500,000 in qualified funding from UMB, to support the Brown Capital Management, LLC Professorship in Sickle Cell Disease. This position will lead the University of Maryland Sickle Cell Disease Center, a multidisciplinary Center of Excellence to enhance and expand the treatment, education, and research programs for sickle cell disease (SCD) in a community with a high prevalence of the disease. The endowed professorship will be fully dedicated to improving care and finding a cure for SCD.
Finally, commerce also provided $750,000, matched by $750,000 in qualified funding from UMB, to support the Mordecai P. Blaustein Faculty Scholar Professorship. This position will allow an innovative physician-scientist specializing in research of biological systems on cellular and molecular mechanisms with a strong emphasis on integrative membrane physiology. This will give the newly created Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Drug Development a competitive edge with a focus on commercialization of scientific discoveries.
“We will be looking for a new faculty member with a strong background in basic research on fundamental physiological mechanisms and a passion for developing potential new drug therapies,” said Stuart Martin, PhD, interim chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Drug Development and deputy director at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Four other local colleges and universities in the state joined the Maryland Department of Commerce in endowing a total of $17.9 million to fund nine new research professorships. The schools receiving matching funds are the University of Maryland, College Park; Bowie State University; Johns Hopkins University; and Washington College.
The endowments were made through MEIF, a state program created to spur basic and applied research in scientific and technical fields at the colleges and universities. All five schools including UMB raised a total of more than $9.1 million in private funding for the positions and Maryland Commerce approved matching grants of $8.75 million to support the endowments.