University at Buffalo Research Funding up 11.5 Percent

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- After several years of moderate increases, the rate of growth of total research and development expenditures at UB more than tripled during the 2006 fiscal year (FY 2006).

Funding rose to $297.9 million in FY 2006, an increase of $30.6 million -- or 11.5 percent --over the previous year, according to UB's report to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its annual Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges.

After experiencing a 21.4 percent increase between fiscal year 2001 and 2002, research expenditures at UB grew a modest 5.8 percent from FY 2002 to 2003, 7.8 percent from 2003 to 2004 and 3.2 percent from 2004 to 2005.

Jorge José, vice president for research, attributes the growth of research expenditures in FY 2005-06 to faculty success in obtaining funding from sources that have not traditionally supported research at UB.

José noted that the NSF survey showed that federal funding, such as that from the National Institutes of Health, accounted for 51.4 percent of research expenditures at UB during FY 2006. The next largest category, institutional investment in organized research, accounted for 72.1 million, or 24.2 percent of the $297.9 million total. Funding from the state and local governments totaled $12.1 million, a 12.2 percent increase over FY 2005.

"Funding from the federal government was stable in FY 2006, rising by only 0.8 percent over the previous year to $153.1 million," José said.

"NIH provides the lion's share of UB's funding. Between 1998 and 2004, the NIH budget doubled. During this period, a proposal's success rate was about 30 percent. Now that NIH growth has leveled off, the success rate is below 10 percent," José explained. "However, other federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, are now experiencing budget increases and our faculty are taking advantage of those opportunities."

UB's FY 2006 funding included a 66.7 percent increase in support from industry, which totaled

nearly $18.5 million, a jump of almost $7.5 million from 2005. This reflects the increased value placed by industry on funding curiosity-driven research and research training at universities, José said.

The NSF survey data show that 91 percent of the $297.9 million in research expenditure by UB during FY 2006 was for basic research, where the primary goal is a fuller knowledge or understanding of a subject, as opposed to applied research.

Research in the life sciences at UB accounted for $212.4 million in research expenditures, or 71.3 percent of the FY 2006 total of $297.9 million, with funding of medical research totaling $146.7 million, or 69 percent of the grand total.

Engineering research was the second-largest category, totaling $47.8 million. Expenditures for research in the physical sciences were $14.3 million.

UB researchers whose funding is detailed in the NSF report include those at the university, affiliated teaching hospitals, CUBRC, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute and UB's Research Institute on Addictions.

"It is clear the FY 2006 growth is due to the conscious efforts by many UB researchers to do research in cutting-edge areas that are fully appreciated by grant reviewers and the funding agencies," José said.

He cited several faculty members who represent the hundreds of UB researchers conducting cutting-edge research:

• Social psychologist Mark Frank, who conducts revolutionary research on facial expressions and behavioral analysis. Frank, an associate professor in the Department of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences, has devised techniques to accurately read the conscious and unconscious facial expressions that suggest someone is lying. His work, which is funded at the rate of more than $1 million a year from the NSF, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Naval Research, has proven to be successful in identifying suspects involved in conventional criminal behavior, and now is being tested for use in identifying potential terrorists.

• William J. Jusko, UB Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been studying pharmacodynamics—the use of mathematical models to capture the details of how drugs affect the body's systems over time. Jusko and colleagues recently have been researching the pharmacodynamics and bioinformatics of pharmacogenomic systems, studying how drugs alter the action of individual genes at different points in time. Jusko's work has been funded continuously for more than 25 years by the NIH and last year was awarded a $4.5 grant to support a Center of Excellence in Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamics from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

• Jean Wactawski-Wende, associate professor of social and preventive medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions, and co-director of UB's Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Vanguard Clinical Center is one of the nation's leading researchers in women's health issues, including the areas of osteoporosis, cancer, hormone replacement therapy and menopause. Most recently, she is principal investigator on the UB portion of a national study that will test whether aspirin—a medication that is available, inexpensive and has few side effects—can improve a woman's chances of becoming pregnant and of maintaining a pregnancy to term. The study is funded by a contract from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. UB's portion of the contract is $2.8 million.

"UB's success," José noted, "is the product of the individual efforts of hundreds of faculty who have successfully competed for support and recognition of their work."

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.