An MU program created to improve patient care awarded $500,000 to five different research teams on Tuesday.
The Coulter Translational Partnership Program’s goal is to accelerate the use of biomedical innovations to help patients. The partnership is between MU and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.
The money will fund projects focusing on a range of medical experiments, including treating vertebral compression fractures, protecting corneal tissue and visualizing the coronary artery.
Director of MU’s Coulter Program, Cynthia Helphingstine, says researchers are constantly coming up with new ideas on how to help patient care and the Coulter Program works on deciding whether or not these ideas have potential.
“We provide funding then to these teams, of one engineer and one clinician, that do experiments that really prove that what they’re working on is a significant improvement over whatever is currently being done now,” Helphingstine said.
Helphingstine says these are significant improvements to make treatment more effective and cheaper so people get out of the hospital sooner.
Interim Vice Chancellor for research, graduate studies and economic development, Mark McIntosh announced MU will be extending the program for five years. The program will provide $800,000 each year, and MU hopes to raise another $200,000 from grants and gifts.
There are only 16 academic institutions in the country that offer a Coulter Translational Partnership Program. MU is the only university in Missouri with the program.