MORGANTOWN — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito brought officials from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences to WVU on Thursday, Aug. 13, to show them how federal funds are benefiting the state and the nation through new medical breakthroughs.
Capito, R-W.Va., along with WVU and Marshall University officials hosted Jon Lorsch, director of National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and Fred Taylor, director of the institute’s Center for Research Capacity Building.
The federal money in question comes from NIH’s IDeA (Institutional Development Award) program, intended to foster biomedical research in states that have historically received less than the national average from NIH, Lorsch said.
For West Virginia, the money totaled $11.3 million for Fiscal Year 2015. Capito said she met Lorsch through her role on the Senate Appropriations Committee and invited him to town to demonstrate her support for IDeA and show how much the state appreciates the funding — now and in the future.
“What I think is great to highlight today is that NIH is everywhere in the country,” Capito said. “We want NIH here in West Virginia.”
Along with a few meetings for officials to express good feelings, high hopes and well wishes, the group toured WVU’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, the Blanchette Rockefeller Neuroscience Center and the Center for Basic and Translational Stroke Research.