Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the lead institution for a five-year, $12.5 million grant from the National Sciences Foundation that will fund the formation of the IISAGE Biology Integration Institute aimed at identifying mechanisms and evolution of sex differences between females and males in aging. Led by principal investigator Nicole Riddle, an associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, IISAGE Biology Integration Institute will determine how multiple biological processes contribute to differences in aging between females and males and uncover their evolutionary history.
The University of Pennsylvania received a grant from the Office of Women’s Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to expand its Heart Safe Motherhood system to monitor postpartum preeclampsia complications. The federal initiative seeks to identify, develop, and disseminate innovative methods to improve postpartum care for Black or African American and American Indian/Alaska Native women enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Heart Safe Motherhood program gives new mothers a blood pressure cuff. They are prompted by the messaging system to report their readings twice daily for 10 days after leaving the hospital. Incoming readings are automatically analyzed based on a pre-programmed algorithm, and clinicians are immediately flagged when potentially dangerous increases in blood pressure are detected. The system is used in Penn Medicine hospitals and in several other pilot projects. The grant will allow the program to expand.
Three faculty from the Brown School and the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis have received a seven-year, $6.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health aimed at improving the health of mothers and children in the St. Louis region. The project, titled “Enhancing Cardiovascular Health Equity in Mothers and Children Through Home Visiting,” will be led by Debra Haire-Joshu, the Joyce and Chauncy Buchheit Professor in Public Health; Victor G. Davila-Roman, professor of medicine, anesthesiology, and radiology; and Rachel Tabak, research associate professor at the Brown School.