Genomics institute gets grant
The Miami Institute for Human Genomics was awarded the Innovation Incentive Fund award, an $80 million grant, by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist this past weekend. Analyses show that the Innovation Incentive Fund award would help create about 300 new jobs in the University of Miami community. The MIHG was established at the Miller School of Medicine a year ago and has already drawn international attention for its groundbreaking work in multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, age-related macular degeneration and autism.
-Ashleyann Gosselin
Federal funding AWARDED
House Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) presented over $4.8 million in federal funding to three UM centers last Monday. The William Lehman Injury Research Center was awarded $2.8 million to help research techniques for training surgical teams for the battlefield, the Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education received $146,000 to help train paramedics and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute received $2 million to research better ways to treat, prevent or cure various eye diseases.
-Ashleyann Gosselin
GRANT TO TARGET COMMUNITIES
The University of Miami School of Education received a three-year grant from The Children’s Trust, a source of revenue established by voter referendum to improve the lives of children and families in Miami-Dade County.
The university plans to use the $610,671 grant to fund a project called Miami SPEC: Learning by Changing and Doing. SPEC, which stands for Strength, Prevention, Empowerment, Community Change, is a project “to promote well being by concentrating on people’s strengths, preventing foreseeable problems, providing voice and choice, and changing community conditions that lead to suffering.”
With the grant, the School of Education will be able to work with three local human services organizations: the Health Foundation of South Florida, the Early Learning Coalition and the Human Services Coalition. SPEC will be introduced to these organizations with the intention of improving their current strategies to more efficiently provide to children and families in underserved communities.
-Chelsea Kate Isaacs