The National Institutes of Health has awarded $11.5 million for the development of a pediatric research center at the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute in Little Rock.
In a news release Wednesday, officials called the award the largest grant received by the institute.
The NIH Institutional Development Award program will fund the planned Center for Transitional Pediatric Research as one of its Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence.
The first phase of funding will start in July and last five years. A total of 15 years of funding will be available through the federal program.
Officials with Arkansas Children’s said the award is the second grant the institute has received from the NIH in the past year. In August 2016, a $9.4 million grant was awarded to create a center for the study of childhood obesity.
The pediatric research center will be under the direction of Dr. Alan Tackett and is expected to result in new treatments and therapies developed specifically for children using state-of-the art technology and a systems biology approach, the release states.
The ultimate goal, officials said, is to identify “points in the intersection of disease and development.”
“By employing a more comprehensive systems biology approach, we can ask many questions at the same time, which allows us to more quickly understand the fundamental reasons that a disease is occurring and how to more specifically develop treatments,” Tackett said.
Tackett is the Scharlau Family endowed professor of cancer research and a professor of biochemistry, pediatrics and pathology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Read Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.