Clockwise from left are Daohong Lin, M.D. (pharmacology), Govindaiah Vinukonda, Ph.D. (pediatrics), Brian Ratliff, Ph.D. (medicine), and Austin Meng Guo, Ph.D. (pharmacology).
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By Cynthia A. Read
n these challenging economic times, the step from research training to becoming an independent investigator who can successfully compete for major grants is more of a giant leap. Four New York Medical College faculty members have been honored with national Scientist Development Grants from the American Heart Association (AHA) to help them take that leap. Govindaiah Vinukonda, Ph.D., Austin Meng Guo, Ph.D., Brian Ratliff, Ph.D., and Daohong Lin, M.D., have each received a four-year, $308,000 grant from the AHA. Their research should eventually bring benefits to health challenges as diverse as heart disease and acute kidney injury, brain hemorrhage in premature infants and cancer. Taken together, these projects are evidence of the broad strength of research at NYMC and the excellence of its newer faculty. The objective of the AHA’s Scientist Development Grants is “To support highly promising beginning scientists in their progress toward independence.” Researchers must have had a faculty appointment no higher than assistant professor for less than four years, and must demonstrate in their applications the significance, conceptual soundness, and innovation of the proposed project, as well as their own qualifications and those of the scientific environment in which the research will be conducted. The grants are highly competitive, and last year only 21 percent of applications were funded. Think AHA and one naturally thinks of heart disease. So it’s natural to wonder how four such disparate research projects fit within its guidelines. But the AHA’s mission encompasses all of cardiovascular disease and stroke, including vascular diseases of the brain and kidney. Scientist Development Grants can go to basic, clinical, bioengineering, and biotechnology projects that quite broadly relate to both function and disease.