November 30, 2021—BRONX, NY—Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine received more than $185 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during federal fiscal year 2021, which ended on September 30, capping another successful year in funding for the institution. Notable awards include those for three major research centers, projects investigating the use of medical cannabis for chronic pain, and studies to address health disparities, as well as an NIH Director’s Innovation Award and an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute.

“Once again, our extraordinary investigators have successfully secured funding to advance our understanding of the science underlying human disease and develop novel diagnostics and treatments for some of the most pressing and intractable medical challenges,” said Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean at Einstein and executive vice president and chief academic officer at Montefiore Medicine. “I applaud their creativity, productivity, and excellence as they pursue their research and further our mission to create new knowledge and improve human health.”

Among the year’s grants are those in which Einstein faculty lead major national projects and centers:

• $5 million to establish a new center dedicated to addressing opioid use disorder and chronic pain (Joanna Starrels, M.D., M.S., Julia Arnsten, M.D., M.P.H., Vilma Gabbay, M.D., M.S.)
• $5 million for continued support for Einstein’s Rose F. Kennedy Center for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (Sophie Molhom, Ph.D., and Steven Walkley, D.V.M., Ph.D.)
• $4 million for the New York Regional Center for Diabetes Translation Research (Jeffrey Gonzalez, Ph.D.)

Once again, our extraordinary investigators have successfully secured funding to advance our understanding of the science underlying human disease and develop novel diagnostics and treatments for some of the most pressing and intractable medical challenges.

Dean Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D.

Two faculty members received prestigious named awards for their research projects:

• $7 million for an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, which will be used to investigate two deadly blood diseases (Ulrich Steidl, M.D., Ph.D.)
• $2.5 million for an HIV/AIDS Research Avenir Award, which will fund efforts to curb infection among people who inject drugs (Matthew Akiyama, M.D., M.S.)

New major grants for investigator-initiated research projects include:

• Two grants totaling $7.6 million to study depression in people living with HIV (Vilma Gabbay, M.D., M.S., Anjali Sharma, M.D., M.S., Joanna Starrels, M.D., M.S.)
• $4.2 million to launch an in-school asthma study aimed at helping children control their asthma symptoms (Marina Reznik, M.D., M.S.)
• $4.1 million to address the mental health fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and parenting stress (Vilma Gabbay, M.D., M.S.)
• $4 million to search for biomarkers for depression in teenagers (Vilma Gabbay, M.D., M.S.)
• $3.6 million to improve outcomes for infants born to HIV-infected mothers (Marcel Yotebieng, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.)
• $3.5 million to determine if dialysis help preserve mobility and function in patients with kidney disease (Matthew Abramowitz, Ph.D.)
• $3.3 million to pursue a new osteosarcoma therapy for children (David Loeb, M.D., Ph.D.)
• $3.3 million to develop a novel approach to treating C. diff (Vern Schramm, Ph.D.)
• $3 million to investigate neural abnormalities in Huntington’s disease (Aldrin Molero, M.D., Ph.D.)