The center works to advance knowledge of environmental impacts on human health. Its 16 faculty members and six faculty affiliates study everything from arsenic exposure to diseases caused by Libby asbestos.
The National Institutes of Health grant represents continued funding for CEHS, a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence housed in UM’s College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences. The center received a similar COBRE grant shortly after it was founded in 2000.
Holian said the center will receive $1.5 million per year for direct costs and another $620,000 per year for indirect costs such as facilities and administration expenses.
A third of the annual $1.5 million will support new pilot research projects. Holian hopes his scientists will use this money to get their research started before finding their own long-term funding from other sources.
He said CEHS researchers have pulled in about $20 million from sources beyond the COBRE grants since the center started.
Another third of the annual $1.5 million will fund four state-of-the-art core facilities housing major research tools. One is the flow cytometry facility housing an instrument capable of incredibly detailed cell analysis. The instrument - costing a half million dollars - requires a full-time operator and facility manager to keep it running.
Holian said core facilities are tools that people can’t afford to have individually but are available to all UM researchers.
The third chunk of annual funding supports the CEHS administration, as well as graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and other specialized costs.
Had the funding fallen through, Holian said CEHS would have been decimated and he likely would have needed to shut down programs, stop taking new students and lay off up to 20 people.
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