The long, hard journey between a medical inspiration in the lab and an FDA approval often takes years--and years--to complete. Now the University of Florida at Gainesville will see if $26 million in NIH grant money can shorten that scientific odyssey.
The university is the first in Florida to obtain a Clinical and Translational Science Award. The money will be used to hire experts who can help advance promising work through regulatory obstacles. So far, 46 institutions have obtained a piece of the grant money that is available. And the government will cap the total number of participating institutions at 60.
The university will be joining a program that currently includes the likes of Harvard and Johns Hopkins. And university officials were quick to give themselves a pat on the back.
"We're now officially recognized as one" of the leading research institutions in the country, says Win Phillips, UF's vice president for research. "There will be great angst among the institutions that are not."
- read the report from the Gainesville Sun