Vanderbilt Among Stanford and Yale Research Teams

For the second consecutive year, the Vanderbilt children’s hospital ranks among the top ten recipients of research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Pediatric researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital received over $20,000,000 in grants last year alone.

Pediatric chair, Dr. Arnold Strauss, has seen the hospital’s NIH funding rank rise from 28th to now 6th in the nation in just five years. He says NIH grants have led to recent discoveries about the flu and pneumococcal vaccines.

“Those studies have shown that we really do need to immunize all children with those two vaccines. If we do, we not only prevent disease in the children, but we prevent disease in elderly people in those same families; and therefore prevent deaths both in the young kids and in the older kids.”

Vanderbilt’s rank this year places them among Yale and Stanford researchers. Strauss says the standing is an indicator of the best research hospitals, which is an important accomplishment since the NIH budget cuts under President Bush have increased competition among research hospitals.