Sumanth Prabhu, M.D., director of the Division of Cardiovascular DiseaseThe University of Alabama at Birmingham Division of Cardiovascular Disease has received a five-year T32 grant from the National Institutes of Health and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute worth $1.3 million that will provide postdoctoral research training opportunities in basic and translational science in heart failure.
The grant will initially fund two scholars during the first year and four more for each additional year. This is the second T32 grant in the division’s history and the first focused on heart failure.
“We are excited about this new NIH T32 training grant, which is distinguished from other cardiovascular training grants across the country by its disease-specific focus on heart failure,” said Sumanth Prabhu, M.D., professor and director of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. “The prevalence and mortality of heart failure have risen dramatically over the past few decades, resulting in expanded clinical and health needs related to this disease.”
Prabhu says multidisciplinary, transformative research approaches are needed to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics to reduce the disease burden of heart failure.
“Our goal with this T32 is to develop postdoctoral fellows from both basic and clinical science backgrounds into independent translational researchers equipped to tackle these research challenges,” he said. “To accomplish this, we have assembled a superb and diverse group of faculty mentors, whose research spans the realm of basic, clinical and population science.”
Prabhu, who will serve as program director, will be joined by faculty co-directors Martin Young, D.Phil., and Steven Lloyd, M.D., Ph.D., in the division, as well as George Howard, Dr.P.H., from the UAB School of Public Health. The overall program includes 33 faculty mentors performing heart failure-related research at UAB.