ATLANTA – Spending about $12 million to recruit eight world-class scientists and 60 of their colleagues is bringing Georgia universities more than $27 million in federal research grants, the Georgia Research Alliance announced Tuesday.
Half of the recruitment costs for lab space and equipment were borne by taxpayer appropriations from the General Assembly with the balance from donations. The mostly federal research grants cover nearly all expenses to pay and equip the 60 scientists who follow what the alliance called the “eminent scholars” they recruit.
This year’s class is the largest the alliance has recruited in more than a decade. Six of them were wooed away from out-of-state universities, one from a private institute and one from a California company.
“We are proud to welcome these world-class scientists to our Academy and their host universities,” said C. Michael Cassidy, Research Alliance president. “They represent the future for research advancement in key areas of opportunities for science and technology in the state of Georgia.”
Three are headed to the University of Georgia: Arthur Edison who specializes in NMR spectroscopy, Robert Haltiwanger focusing on glycobiology and Ted Ross, an expert on infectious diseases. Three head to the Georgia Institute of Technology: Deepak Divan in energy management, Stanislav Emelianov in medical imaging and Ravi Kane in cancer
nanotechnology. Going to Emory University is Eric Sorscher in pediatrics, and Ming Zou will explore molecular medicine at Georgia State University.
Although most of these scientists are working in areas related to medicine, none is heading to the state’s medical college at Georgia Regents University. Research Alliance officials say that’s a coincidence since two were recruited for GRU last year.
Who is recruited and their fields are determined by the leadership of Georgia’s universities working with the Research Alliance. GRU is in the hunt for two scholars in the current year.
GRU’s leadership suffered the resignation of Ricardo Azziz as president last year. But school officials have high hopes of the new president.
“President Brooks A. Keel has had much success growing the research profile at his previous institutions and has deemed research a priority at GRU,” said GRU spokeswoman Kelly Jasper. “Under his leadership, we anticipate additional opportunities for top-tier research in the future.”
The bulk of Georgia’s medical research is already done in Atlanta.
In terms of grants from the National Institutes of Health, Georgia ranks 12th in funding so far this federal fiscal year with $388 million from 936 grants. Of those, 100 grants totaling $40.5 million went to GRU, and 114 have gone to UGA for a total of $42 million.
Meanwhile, Emory has gotten 522 for $227 million; Tech 62 for $18 million; Georgia State 64 for $21 million and Morehouse School of Medicine 25 for $21 million.
Adding all of the NIH grants in Atlanta comes to 688 for $295 million when including research done by private companies and foundations like the American Cancer Society. Just 28 grants went to the rest of the state.
Ten years ago, GRU and UGA had essentially the same number of grants, each totaling $35 million. Back then, Emory had 574 for $222 million, Tech 60 for $18 million, Morehouse 40 for $29 million and Georgia State 44 for $12 million.
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