Oklahoma City, April 21, 2020
The Presbyterian Health Foundation is awarding $175,000 to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center for researchers to start investigations into the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.
The funds will be augmented with $125,000 from the OU Health Sciences Center for a total of $300,000 in seed grant funding.
The OU Health Sciences Center anticipates funding 12 pilot projects at $25,000 each. Research projects will focus on the cellular and molecular aspects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, host immune responses to the virus, detection, and clinical characteristics of COVID-19. The awards are considered seed funding that will allow researchers to launch investigations, then leverage their discoveries to earn federal funding from the National Institutes of Health.
“PHF’s regular support of seed grants, like this round announced for COVID-19 research, is at the heart of what we do,” said PHF President Tom R. Gray III. “Helping Oklahoma researchers launch new COVID-19 research projects and potentially leverage external funding to move their discoveries forward not only supports an important sector of our local economy, but is a great investment in the public health of Oklahomans, especially during this unprecedented time in our lives.”
PHF has been a major funder of research programs at the OU Health Sciences Center. Since 2014, PHF has awarded grants totaling $16.1 million toward research funding.
Originally posted in The Journal Record on 4/21/2020: https://journalrecord.com/2020/04/21/phf-awards-grants-to-ou-health-sciences-center/.