UAMS Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases Earns Prestigious $8 Million Grant Renewal
| LITTLE ROCK – The Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has received a five-year competitive award of $8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), extending the center’s largest NIH research grant to 20 years and a total funding of $33 million.
The goal of the research supported by the grant is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that cause osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, and men and women with old age as well as patients developing osteoporosis as a side-effect of therapy with steroids.
“This is one of the largest and longest funded multi-component research grants in the history of UAMS,” said Stavros C. Manolagas, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator of the grant and director of the Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases.
“In fact, this is the longest one of only three other such grants funded by the Division of Aging Biology of the National Institute on Aging in the area of bone and mineral metabolism nationally,” said Manolagas, a professor of medicine who holds the Thomas E. Andreoli, M.D., M.A.C.P., Clinical Scholar Chair in Internal Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine.
More than 10 million Americans have osteoporosis and another 34 million have low bone mass that puts them at risk for developing the disease that weakens bones and causes fractures. Using an understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the development of osteoporosis, the investigators of the center are developing more effective therapies for treatment of this common metabolic bone disease.
Since its establishment in 1994, the Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases has brought to UAMS nearly $70 million in extramural research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The center’s faculty members have more than 1,200 publications. Their expertise includes molecular and cellular biology, molecular genetics, biology of bone as a tissue and the clinical diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Related Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a statewide network of regional centers; and seven institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute, the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging and the Translational Research Institute. Named best Little Rock metropolitan area hospital by U.S. News & World Report, it is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has more than 2,800 students and 775 medical residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including about 1,000 physicians and other professionals who provide care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.