The National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of California, Los Angeles a $7.2 million life science grant to study genetic diseases and develop ways to diagnose rare genetic disorders. UCLA is the only university on the West Coast and one of only three in the United States with a laboratory that can carry out genomic sequence directly usable for patient care, making it the ideal university to receive this life science grant.
“A vast number of children and adults suffer from severe, often fatal, undiagnosed disorders,” said Eric Vilain, a co-principal investigator on the UCLA grant with Stanley Nelson, Christina Palmer and Katrina Dipple. “This program will enable us to discover new genes causing ultra-rare medical conditions and to identify environmental factors that lead to disease or that interact with genes to cause disease.”
The new life science funding at UCLA is part of a $120 million initiative within the National Institutes of Health called the Undiagnosed Diseases Network. The $7.2 million life science grant to University of California, Los Angeles researchers will provide for "bedside-to-bench" clinical research to assist doctors in their work of giving searched-for answers to patients suffering from unknown diseases.
University of California, Los Angeles
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
“Undiagnosed diseases take a huge toll on patients, their families and the health care system,” said Katrina Dipple, one of the co-principal investigators on the UCLA grant. “This funding will accelerate and expand our clinical genomics program, enabling us to quickly give patients a firm diagnosis and clarify the best way to treat them.”
The University of California, Los Angeles is a well-funded research university that has received over $1 billion in new research funding per year over the last three years. In FY 2013-2014 year to date, the University of California, Los Angeles has received $825.6 million in new research funding. The University of California, Los Angeles also receives life science funding from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. In 2013, UCLA Clinical received $13.3 million from the NIH.
Lab suppliers working to market life science products and lab equipment in California are invited to exhibit at Biotechnology Calendar, Inc.’s UCLA life science vendor show. Our Biotechnology Vendor Showcase™ Event at the University of California, Los Angeles will take place on October 9th, 2014. Last year, this life science vendor show attracted 626 attendees. Of these attendees, 152 were purchasing agents, professors and post docs, and 79 were lab managers. These attendees came from 41 different research buildings and 81 on-campus departments.
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. is a full-service science research marketing and events-planning company that organizes life science vendor shows at top research universities across the country. We have been in the business of organizing quality life science vendor shows for over 20 years. If you would like to exhibit at a university closer to home, we encourage you to view our 2014 calendar of events. For more life science funding statistics on the University of California, Los Angeles, or to learn more about our UCLA life science vendor show, click on the button below.