The MUSC Department of Surgery rises in national research rankings

The Department of Surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina came in at number 35 nationally for the most funds awarded to a surgery department by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2023, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR). The BRIMR is an independent non-profit organization that publishes rankings of institutions, departments, and investigators based on the funding they receive from the NIH. The reporting is based on year-end composite data for the 2023 federal fiscal year, which ended on September 30, 2023.  

According to the NIH’s reporting for the federal FY 2023, the MUSC Department of Surgery (DOS) received $5.3M in NIH grants, the largest amount of NIH funding for the DOS in the past ten years recorded in the BRIMR database.  Additionally, last year was particularly noteworthy for several of our researchers. Out of 710 researchers that achieved national ranking, Hongjun Wang, Ph.D., ranked in the top 10%, Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D., ranked in the top 21%, and Nancy Klauber-DeMore, M.D., ranked in the top 22%.

 “The 2023 BRIMR rankings highlight the dedication and hard work of our team of surgeons, scientists, trainees, and administrative staff who – together - are changing the paradigm of surgical care through research endeavors,” said Prabhakar Baliga, M.D., chair of the MUSC Department of Surgery. “I could not be more grateful for everyone’s collaborative efforts and am deeply appreciative of our Surgery Research Council, who guides the research efforts in the department.”  

Similar ranking to the Department of Surgery, MUSC’s Biochemistry department took the number 34 spot in the BIMR rankings. And five other College of Medicine departments ranked in the top 25 spots of NIH funding in their respective categories, including Psychiatry (9), Otolaryngology (10), Neuroscience (15), Public Health (20), and Anatomy and Regulatory Medicine (23).