The next big idea to help people with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, or many other conditions could be bubbling up right now in a University of Michigan research lab.

Or it might be a new idea in the mind of a U-M doctor, scientist, healthcare professional, graduate student or patient.

Now, U-M has received a $58 million grant to help those ideas move forward, with Michiganders of all ages and backgrounds as partners.

The grant is from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. It provides for an up to five-year new dose of funding for the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, or MICHR, contingent on the availability of future U.S. congressional appropriations. More than 50 other universities nationwide are supported through the CTSA Program.

The institute helps U-M health and life science researchers turn their best ideas and discoveries into tests, treatments, care innovations and cures through training, funding and central research services. It also gives community members, including patients, the ability to help shape research priorities.

“The new funding means more chances to translate U-M ideas into knowledge and breakthroughs that can eventually help patients and the general public,” says MICHR director George A. Mashour, MD, PhD. “Without community participation in all phases of research, many of those ideas simply can’t go very far.”

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