Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education

Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.

The University of Virginia received a $3 million donation to support its Women’s Center from alumna Maxine Platzer Lynn. The donation is the largest in the 25-year history of the Women’s Center. Sharon Davie, director of the Women’s Center, said, “This gift will make our future come alive.”

Florida State University received a four-year, $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research aimed at establishing new methods for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

The University of Georgia received a five-year, $656,348 grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on how to improve the mental and sexual health of young, pregnant women in the African nation of Liberia. The research will be under the direction of Tamora Callands, an assistant research scientist in the university’s College of Public Health.

The University of Arizona received a three-year grant of $878,000 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to provide healthcare information to Hispanic women in Pima County, Arizona. The information will focus on cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and depression.

Indiana University in Bloomington received a $414,600 grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on the relationship between Type 2 diabetes and breast cancer. Studies have found that women who have Type 2 diabetes and develop breast cancer have a poorer prognosis for their cancer. This study hopes to find out why this is so. The research is under the direction of Juhua Luo, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics.

The University of Southern California has received two grants worth nearly $4 million for ovarian cancer research. One grant project will attempt to find risk genes which will serve to improve prediction of ovarian cancer. The second project will identify and confirm molecular markers for ovarian cancer and locate potential targets for treatment of tumors. This grant program is under the direction of Susan J. Ramus, associate professor of preventive medicine at the university’s Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Ramus holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., received a five-year, $19.8 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development for a fertility awareness and family planning project in sub-Saharan Africa. The project will be under the director of Victoria Jennings, director of the university’s Institute for Reproductive Health.

The University of Florida received a $250,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a mobile tool that can be used to detect the warning signs of preeclampsia among pregnant women in rural, underdeveloped areas.