Pediatrics dept. pulls in funding

Despite the sluggish economy, The Department of Pediatrics attracted more external funding for research in the 2009 fiscal year than last year.

Department officials at the IU School of Medicine announced that faculty members received more than 250 grants and contracts for a total of about $47 million, up 42 percent from the last fiscal year.

Richard Schreiner, chairman of the IU Department of Pediatrics on the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus, said grants from the National Institutes of Health, the major funder of biomedical research in the country, have been extraordinarily competitive because the NIH budget has not grown as it did in the previous 10 years.

But Schreiner said the department has been expanding and has been successful in receiving grants.

“The pediatric department faculty members have been growing and maturing our research programs during the past years,” he said. “In addition, we recruited some new faculty this past year and one new, large, basic science research program in Type I diabetes, which has been very successful in getting funding.”

Out of the $47 million, $36 million went toward research funds and $3 million went toward research training and education, with the remaining $8 million devoted to clinical and other service missions, Schreiner said.

The National Institutes of Health was the largest single source of funding, providing a record $18 million, placing the department in the top 10 nationally in NIH funding among medical school departments of pediatrics.

The faculty members have also been pursuing American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding and secured $1 million in funds last year, Schreiner said.

Schreiner also said the process of most research grants is a competitive, peer-reviewed process that makes receiving funds difficult.

He added that for most of the federal research grants, only 8 to 15 percent of those grants that are approved are actually funded.

And the economy hasn’t helped the situation, either.

“In general, all of the funding agencies have had to decrease their level of funding because of the economy and the stock market,” Schreiner said. “Everything is more competitive than before.”

Though Schreiner said the department doesn’t set a specific goal in the amount of funding to receive, the faculty members work hard to secure as much funding as possible.

“It takes a lot of grants submitted, a lot of great ideas, a lot of great writing and some luck to get funded,” he said. “These awards account for a third of the department’s annual revenue and expenditure and have significant impact on the growth and success of many of its basic and clinical research programs.”