A $9 million grant awarded to MSU on Monday will enable university researchers to study the role veins play in hypertension.
One in five Americans have hypertension, which is commonly known as high blood pressure. The grant was awarded to the university by the National Institutes of Health, a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The grant also will be used to study how veins contribute to other ailments, including chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. MSU received the grant because of its unique focus on veins as opposed to arteries.
Gregory Fink, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, said there are no symptoms to detect high blood pressure. He said people who have hypertension are more susceptible to strokes and heart disease.
Fink added that several university departments and colleges spent about $100,000, in the last two years, vying for the grant. The tests researchers conducted were used to gather new vein-related data.
"In order to get a project like this, you have to get preliminary data to show that you have important new findings to follow up on," said Fink, the co-director of the project. "The ultimate hope is to understand hypertension in humans and how we can treat it better."
Several departments and colleges within the university donated money to help fund the preliminary tests used to get the grant.
Fink said he and four other researchers will spend the next five years studying veins and arteries.
Mice and rats have been the primary test subjects, but Fink said humans will be tested in the near future.
J. Justin McCormick, associate dean of research in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, said the college donated a large sum to help pay for early research.
"It's the best $20,000 we ever invested," he said, adding that the grant will benefit medical graduate students.
McCormick said grants help pay stipends to graduate students conducting research and pay for post-doctoral workers and technicians.
Stephanie Watts, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, said graduate students will work side-by-side with researchers.
"They have the opportunity to work multiple techniques and see science done in several ways by working within the program project group," she said. "Students will work with every one of these professors, sometimes in multiple laboratories."
Watts said some graduate students will use their field experience to research information for their doctoral theses.
She added that MSU's team of five researchers each specialize in a particular subject, gathering information they will share with each other to further the team's knowledge.
Fink said the grant will help establish MSU as a leader in scientific research.
"To us, it's a very important sign that biomedical research, in particular, is state-of-the-art at Michigan State," Fink said.
Antonio Planas can be reached at planasan@msu.edu.
