CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WVDN) — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced funding from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA), as well as the National Science Foundation (NSF), to support a program to help curb maternal mortality victims and help fund a variety of research programs at West Virginia University (WVU). 

HHS FUNDING: Senator Capito, Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS), secured funding for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (WV DHHR) from the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion (CDC-NCCDPHP) program to help reduce pregnancy-related deaths among mothers by improving data quality on the issue.

“Programs that support our mothers and young families are essential to the health and well-being of our nation. I have introduced legislation to reduce preventable deaths and to work towards every mom having a safe and healthy pregnancy and will continue to put solutions forward that provide the support they need,” Ranking Member Capito said.

WVU RESEARCH FUNDING: Senator Capito also secured funding from HHS, NSF, and USDA to support seven research projects at WVU, including a neurological research project, a community health research project, environmental research projects, and an astronomy research project.

“I am pleased to deliver resources to researchers at WVU who are looking at ways to improve community health and others who are on the cutting edge of research that has the potential to help those who have experienced serious brain injuries recover properly,” Senator Capito said. “I am also excited to hear about what the students and professors learn in their research about energy and the environment on earth and in space and how we can use it to better understand the world and our universe.”

Individual awards listed below:

$549,549 in HHS funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for a neurological research project involving mitoNEET as a therapeutic target for mitigating ischemic brain injury following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). 

$510,811 in NSF funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for a research project titled “New Interference Detection, Mitigation, and Fusion Methodologies for Radio Astronomy.”

$409,186 in NSF funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for a research project titled “GP-IN: Empowering Appalachian Students through the Exploring Geosciences Solutions (EGeoS) Curriculum and the Appalachian Geoscience Learning Ecosystem (AGLE).”

$370,000 in HHS funding to the WV DHHR (Charleston, W.Va.) to improve data quality to identify and characterize pregnancy-related deaths and address health inequities.

$274,951 in NSF funding to Parthian Battery Solutions, LLC. (Morgantown, W.Va.) for a research project centered at WVU called “STTR Phase I:  Novel State of Health Measurements Through Advanced Lithium-ion Battery Modeling for Secure and Scalable 2nd-Life Battery Deployment.”

$270,000 in HHS funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for a pharmacology, physiology, and biological chemistry research project titled “HSTA TEAMS for Community Health: Teaching Educators and Adolescents Mentoring and Science (TEAMS) to Improve Community Health.”

$219,000 in USDA funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for an environmental research project titled “Getting to the Root of Plant-Microbe Interactions in Bioproduct Agroecosystems.”

$191,734 in NSF funding to WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) for an arctic environmental research project titled “Collaborative Research: Ideas Lab: ETAUS Meshed Observations of the Remote Subsurface with Heterogeneous Intelligent Platforms (MOTHERSHIP).”