MUSC receives $16 million in combined NIH funding to support digestive disease research

In a major boost to important research into gastrointestinal disease being conducted at MUSC, a $6 million five-year grant to establish a Digestive Disease Research Core Center (DDRCC) has been awarded to Don Rockey, M.D., in the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology. The grant, funded by The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the first-ever NIH Center award for the division, adding them to the ranks of only 17 other NIH-funded digestive disease centers in the United States.

The overall objective of the MUSC DDRCC is to increase the availability of resources for center members and foster research, collaborations and new directions in digestive disease research, leading to important scientific discoveries. The grant for the DDRDC will fund several core research areas that share a common theme: the pathway from cellular injury to inflammation to fibrosis (and malignancy) that lead to diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and liver.

The DDRCC grant is complementary to a new P20 grant recently awarded to Stephen Duncan, Ph.D., in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology, to establish the MUSC Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Digestive & Liver Disease (CDLD). Funded through the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), the overarching objective of the CDLD is to enhance the research capacity and competitiveness of CDLD members and Junior Investigators (JIs) by expanding available infrastructure, access to quality training, and opportunities to collaborate, thereby enabling outstanding basic research in digestive and liver disease.

Under the leadership of Dr. Rockey and Dr. Duncan, these grants, totaling nearly $17 million in funding over five years, have the potential to invigorate and transform efforts in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology across the institution and the nation. MUSC is the only institution in the U.S. that has both of these grants at the same time.