Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine received $192 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during 2024, remaining one of the top research institutions in the country.

“Los miembros del cuerpo docente de Einstein siguen demostrando su liderazgo en sus campos, sobresaliendo en todas las áreas del espectro de investigación, desde la ciencia básica y la investigación traslacional hasta los ensayos clínicos y los estudios comunitarios”, afirmó el MD Yaron Tomer, decano de la cátedra Marilyn y Stanley M. Katz en Einstein y director académico en Montefiore Einstein. “Pero lo que realmente nos distingue es nuestro profundo compromiso con nuestra comunidad y la priorización de las investigaciones sobre enfermedades y afecciones que afectan al Bronx”.

Einstein’s largest grant—expected to total $70 million over five years—was awarded to Kartik Chandran, Ph.D., to lead a multi-institutional consortium that will develop vaccines and treatments for emerging viruses. The Einstein-led group will link 13 teams in academia, government, and industry to better understand virus-host interaction and build “road maps” for quickly developing preventive strategies and therapies against microbes with pandemic potential.

Several other faculty members received major grants focused on age-related diseases and conditions:

• Two grants totaling $5.9 million to unravel the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease (Frank Soldner, M.D.)
• $5.2 million to research aging-related blood defects in two Ashkenazi Jewish cohorts that include individuals aged 95 and older (Aditi Shastri, M.D., and Sofiya Milman, M.D., M.S.)
• $3.6 million to examine the neurological and behavioral processes involved in asthma’s influence on walking among older people (Roee Holtzer, Ph.D., and Jonathan Feldman, Ph.D.)

“Einstein investigators are particularly committed to conducting research on diseases and conditions that disproportionately impact the Bronx,” said Marla Keller, M.D., executive dean at Einstein. Among the grants focused on addressing these disorders are:

• $3.9 million to study how interactions among disseminated cancer cells lead to metastasis (Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D., and Maria S. Sosa, Ph.D.)
• $3.8 million to investigate arterial calcium buildup in chronic kidney disease (Wei Chen, M.D., M.S.)
• $3.7 million to investigate if an immersive mindfulness intervention can reduce both pain and cravings in people with opioid use disorder (Hector Perez, M.D.)
• $3.6 million to develop a T cell-targeted delivery technology for producing HIV-specific CAR-T cells in patients’ bodies (Harris Goldstein, M.D.)

“I congratulate our faculty as they continue to expand our understanding of human health and disease—and most importantly, improve the health and lives of our neighbors in the Bronx and beyond,” said Dr. Tomer.