news-record.com

Researchers at universities in the region will receive $23.1 million in federal funding as part of a national stimulus initiative to promote medical research that was announced by the White House Wednesday.

President Barack Obama announced the $5 billion in grant awards under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The White House says that the more than 12,000 grants are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs during the next two years and are part of an overall $100 billion in stimulus funding for science and technology.

The medical research money through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be distributed to the 50 states.

The vast majority of research money for the Triad will go toward Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which received 70 grants totaling $21.7 million. The Wake Forest grants will fund projects ranging from research on diabetes and immune response to infections to combatting coronary heart disease and drug addiction.

Wake Forest ranked third in the state for the grants announced Wednesday behind Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to information from the White House.

UNCG received four grants totaling $304,000, while N.C. A&T received three grants for $764,000. Winston-Salem State University received a grant for $309,000.

Nationally, more than $1 billion of the grant funding is dedicated to research applying the technology produced by the Human Genome Project. The new funding will allow researchers to study the genomic changes linked to cancer, heart, lung, and blood disease and autism, potentially leading to new treatments and cures, the White House reports.

The genome funding includes $175 million for the Cancer Genome Atlas to collect more than 20,000 tissue samples from more than 20 cancers and determine all of the genetic changes in thousands of the tumor samples.