Bradley Yoder, Ph.D.The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB) ranked 6th place nationally at $17 million for 2020 NIH research funding.
“The main cause of our increase in funding is due to our large collaborate programs,” says Bradley Yoder, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology. “Dr. Qin Wang has been another major part of our growth through multiple grants focused on neurodegeneration. We currently have three faculty ranked in the top 25 in NIH funding out of 800+ NIH supported cell biology faculty.”
Moreover, Yoder explains that CDIB has acquired several large collaborative U54 grants—either newly obtained or renewed—in the past few years. “Two of these were the U54 Childhood Cystic Kidney Disease Center grant and the U54 Center for Precision Animal Modeling (CPAM) grant. These grants span across departments and very collaborative efforts.”
CDIB ranked 4th place for a period of time, but with the recent retirement and Emeritus appointment of Marcus Bamman, his large collaborative grants were transferred to another institution retroactive for 2020. This change dropped CDIB to 6th place out of 78 Cell Biology departments in the country.
Yoder says faculty in CDIB has been steady over the past year, and several junior faculty have been hired, which contributed to the department’s funding growth.
“The extreme hard work and effort that the faculty within CDIB, as well as those outside of CDIB, have contributed to the success. Additionally, the School of Medicine dean’s office has helped provide contributions to these programs that make us much more competitive on a national level. Their support for the U54 programs are very important to show the university is behind our efforts,” Yoder says.