By Courtney Pitts
Daily Nebraskan, U. Nebraska

(UWire)--Receiving grants often assists in jump-starting research or assuring its continuation. In the past month, the University of the Nebraska Medical Center has secured three grants totaling more than $20 million combined. Here's a look at what each grant will be used for:

$9.1 million Heart Failure Grant

The grant was first awarded in 1999 by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a Division of National Institutes of Health, and has been renewed twice now.

The focus of the research is "to understand how the nervous system and the cardiovascular system interact in health and disease," said Dr. Irving Zucker, chairman of the department of cellular and integrative physiology at UNMC and director of the grant.

During the previous studies funded by the grant, UNMC scientists discovered a connection between heart failure and alterations in the nervous system. These alterations were found to worsen the symptoms of heart failure and cause further deterioration of the body.

"When new students come in to the lab, you get a new outlook and fresh questions."

-Dr. Irving Zucker

Students also take part in the research.

"When new students come in to the lab, you get a new outlook and fresh questions," Zucker said. "You have to have students in the lab to ask the base questions and do much of the work. In the end, they probably bring more to the lab than they get out of it."

Researchers ultimately hope to develop new targets of therapy that will ease the symptoms of heart failure and a variety of other cardiovascular systems, Zucker said.

However, the process isn't a quick one. The grants only last five years.

"Five years is never enough," Zucker said. "In four years we will start to put together another five-year renewal, so hopefully our research will continue on for many years to come."

$150,000 Non-embryonic Stem Cell Grants

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services awarded three UNMC researchers each a two-year $150,000 grant to conduct non-embryonic stem cell research.

The researchers include Dr. Iqbal Ahmad, a UNMC opthamology and visual sciences professor, whose work will focus on the use of adult stem cells to combat vision problems; Dr. Jialin Zheng, a UNMC pharmacology and experimental neurosciences professor, who's researching the use of stem cells to find therapies for Parkinson's disease; and Dr. Angie Rizzino, a professor in the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied diseases, who's studying the molecular mechanisms that allow certain stem cells to form any type of body cell.

"Stem cells, regenerative medicine - this whole idea of cellular therapy - is going to be an important part of how we do medicine in the 21st century," said Dr. James Turpen, interim director of regenerative medicine at UNMC. "Developing therapies isn't something that occurs in five or so years, but it's what we're looking at 10 to 20 years down the road."

Turpen hopes the grants helps the research projects move forward.

"Right now, we're looking forward to establishing this line of research and moving on to getting federal funding that moves in the direction of making us a well-recognized medical center," he said.

$11.1 million Staph Infection Grant

The University of Nebraska Medical Center's department of pathology and microbiology received its largest grant ever from the National Institutes of Health to investigate community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA), a dangerous staph infection resistant to antibiotics.

According to a UNMC news release, the research team is headed by Dr. Ken Bayles, a professor of pathology/microbiology at UNMC.

"The team has expertise in varied aspects of staph including biofilm development, gene regulation, physiology and the immunology of staph infections," Bayles said in the press release. "The hypothesis to be tested is that staph biofilm formation involves complex developmental processes that affect the host immune response."

Other members of the team include Dr. Paul Fey, an associate professor and associate director of pathology and microbiology; Dr. Tammy Kielian and Dr. Alex Horswill, both of whom are assistant professors of pathology and microbiology.

Also according to release, "The researchers seek to understand how staph bacteria grow in animals to cause disease - using a mouse model that has genetic variances to test various outcomes. They also will look at the mechanism behind biofilm development - how it forms and becomes resistant to the body's natural immune response and to antibiotics."