Coalition seeking money for diabetes, obesity research
y MELISSA McEVER
The Brownsville Herald
A recently formed coalition of Rio Grande Valley universities has promised $1 million in grants to Valley-based researchers who investigate diabetes, obesity and the region’s nursing shortage.
The Borderplex Health Council, an alliance of the region’s University of Texas campuses, is requesting proposals from researchers for projects that will address the Valley’s most persistent health problems, officials said this week.
The winning projects will receive grants ranging from $25,000 to $50,000, for a total of $1 million.
“The goal of these dollars is to bring different disciplines together to study these problems,” said Dr. Leonel Vela, regional dean for the Regional Academic Health Center, which is part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
“They can look at it from all potential angles,” from sociology to genetics, he said.
The research projects will have to be collaborative, involving at least two of the participating universities, Vela said.
Members of the Borderplex Health Council include the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and its RAHC campuses, the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston/School of Public Health and the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Collaboration among the universities will help maximize research efforts and resources, Juliet Garcia, president of UT-Brownsville and chair of the council, said in a statement.
Researchers can be from any of the council’s universities or from other South Texas educational or scientific institutions. Investigators must conduct their research in the Valley, Vela said.
The deadline for the first round of research proposals is Oct. 7.
Each university will contribute a portion of its funds to the grant program, officials said.
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