Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention Receives $5 Million Funding Renewal from CDC
Publication Date: Tuesday, December 09, 2008
LITTLE ROCK, AR. (Dec. 9, 2008) – The Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention has received $5 million in renewal funding to be distributed over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The grant will allow the center to continue exploring the causes of birth defects in children from Arkansas and throughout the nation. The ArkansasCenter for Birth Defects Research will receive $1 million in new funds for each of five years, expiring in November 2013. The first year of funding has already come through, and the CDC will provide the additional annual funds based on yearly progress reports.
The Arkansas center has produced extensive birth defects research, drawing on the resources of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which is supported by the CDC and has additional centers currently funded in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Utah. The new award will sustain the ArkansasCenter’s participation in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study.
Earlier this fall, the American Journal of Epidemiology published research spearheaded at the ArkansasCenter for Birth Defects Research that indicated the success of folic acid fortification. This and many other studies are made possible through CDC funding.
The CDC award will aid the center in attracting local and national support for continued innovative birth defects research and provide new means for expanding its epidemiological research capacity. The funds, combined with institutional and extramural monies, also will support the center’s pursuit of genomic and epigenomic analyses of biological samples collected from the national study’s participants.
“We are thrilled to receive another five-year cycle of funding from the CDC,” said Charlotte Hobbs, MD, PhD, director of the ArkansasCenter for Birth Defects Research and Prevention at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI). “Arkansans can be confident that the CDC’s generosity will give birth to more research that will provide babies with better, healthier futures. Our goal is for no baby to endure a birth defect.”
Hobbs also is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine and section chief of Birth Defects Research. The ArkansasCenter for Birth Defects Research and Prevention was established in 1997. The CDC created the Centers for Birth Defects Research and Prevention at the request of the U.S. Congress to help reduce birth defects in our nation. The Arkansas center is a collaborative effort of the faculty and personnel from the Arkansas Reproductive Health Monitoring System (ARHMS), UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, ACHRI, and the Arkansas Department of Health. It is based at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute on the pediatric health care facility’s campus in Little Rock.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital is the only pediatric medical center in Arkansas and one of the largest in the United States serving children from birth to age 21. The campus spans 29 city blocks and houses 316 beds, a staff of approximately 500 physicians, 80 residents in pediatrics and pediatric specialties and more than 4,000 employees. The private, nonprofit healthcare facility boasts an internationally renowned reputation for medical breakthroughs and intensive treatments, unique surgical procedures and forward-thinking medical research - all dedicated to fulfilling our mission of enhancing, sustaining and restoring children's health and development. ACH recently ranked No. 76 on FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®. For more information, visit www.archildrens.org.
ACHRI provides a research environment on the ACH campus to meet the needs of the UAMS faculty. Research scientists at ACHRI conduct clinical, basic science, and health services research for the purpose of treating illnesses, preventing disease and improving the health of children everywhere.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has about 2,538 students and 733 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
It is one of the state’s largest public employers with about 9,600 employees, including nearly 1,000 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ AreaHealthEducationCenters throughout the state. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $5 billion a year. For more information, visit www.uams.edu.
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