Congrats! Jacobs School Receives NIH Training Grant to Prepare Next Generation of Biomedical Informatics and Data Scientists

Published July 18, 2022

I’m very pleased to share that the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo recently received a highly competitive National Institutes of Health (NIH)-National Library of Medicine (NLM) T15 Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Training Grant renewal, increasing the school’s capacity to prepare the next generation of biomedical informatics and data scientists.

Only a handful of U.S. organizations were selected for this prestigious award, which will provide approximately $2.5 million for an additional five years of full-time support from four doctoral students and four postdoctoral fellows in our Biomedical Informatics program.

This renewal marks the second consecutive five-year cycle of funding for this award since 2017. The T15 NIH funding helps cover stipends, tuition, and other training related expenses for the trainees.

Many of the trainees are recipients of the 42 degrees and certificates that the pioneering Jacobs School’s biomedical informatics graduate program has awarded since its inception in 2013.

“I am thankful that we have received another round of funding for this award that continues to support our program which is one of the top in the nation,” said Peter L. Elkin, MD, primary investigator and professor and chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics. “Our training program has been improving the nation’s ability to share interoperable data and to perform cutting edge translational research for the last five years. Biomedical informatics plays a leading role in the success of research and education at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.”

This grant renewal follows the school’s hosting of the 2022 NLM training grant meeting in-person this past June, where 227 registered participants — including NLM extramural programs director Richard Palmer, DrPH, UB Provost A. Scott Weber, PhD, and Dr. Elkin — spent two days discussing informatics and data science. Being chosen to host this national conference was a great honor and speaks highly of the Jacob School’s reputation nationally and at the NIH.

Thank you, Dr. Elkin and your team in the Department of Biomedical Informatics for ushering this grant renewal forward. I’m so proud of all you continue to accomplish and the richness of the research ongoing at the University at Buffalo. 

Now more than ever, the world needs biomedical informatics scientists who work relentlessly to diagnose diseases and test the efficacy of diverse treatments.

 

Proudly,

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA

Vice President for Health Sciences
and Dean, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences