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 Arizona’s Center for Innovation in Brain Science received a $15 million grant to research what midlife events could increase a woman’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease later in life. The grant, from the National Institutes on Aging, will enable pharmacology Professor Roberta Diaz Brinton to research how perimenopausal changes in the brain may lead to a greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

A new, five-year $17.1 million grant awarded to the Ohio State University College of Medicine from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will fund the creation of a knowledge bank to support the study of drugs and medical treatments for pregnant and lactating women and children. The grant will help establish the Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics Data, Model, Knowledge, and Research Coordination Center. This newly created center will serve as a national resource for multidisciplinary expertise and knowledge in maternal and pediatric therapeutics.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts received a $462,645 grant from the National Institutes of Health to determine the role that muscle and bone strength play in stress fractures in the feet of female runners. The three-year project will combine mechanical testing, computational modeling, and analysis of the feet of female runners, including some teenagers, to identify the factors involved in injuries to foot bones known as metatarsals. The research will be under the direction of Karen Troy, a professor of biomedical engineering at the institute.

The University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, and Florida Tech will collaborate with the Florida High Tech Corridor in implementing an initiative funded by a $150,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration to help support women entrepreneurship. The initiative will aim to elevate the role of underrepresented women-owned small businesses across the 23-county region’s innovation ecosystem by enhancing the inclusivity and participation of women entrepreneurs in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Catalyst Competition program.