Center for Women’s Health Research receives funding from Anschutz Foundation for faculty development

The Center for Women’s Health Research is pleased to announce it has received funding from The Anschutz Foundation to continue the growth of its Faculty Development and Mentoring Program.

Two seed grants will be given to early career and mid-career investigators. These seed grants are critical to allow for the collection of pilot data, which then may be used to get bigger grants. The funding also includes salary support for two senior faculty members (Wendy Kohrt and Jane Reusch), who will add greatly to the research bandwidth and mentoring capacity, and for the hiring of a programming and communications professional.

The growth of the CWHR directly addresses its three-part mission to support innovative research in women’s health and sex differences in the areas of cardiovascular disease and diabetes; recruit and train excellent scientists to comprise a pipeline of future researchers in women’s health; and educate citizens and health care providers about women’s health findings.

In the CWHR’s eight years, it has sponsored 20 junior researchers working in an interdisciplinary way to expand knowledge about cardiovascular disease and diabetes across the lifespan. Studies undertaken range from fetal origins of adult disease to the effects of diabetes on women’s cardiovascular systems. CWHR researchers have been highly successful in generating federal support, even amid this difficult research-funding landscape. For each private dollar donated, the CWHR and its researchers have been awarded more than $10 in grants.

The $450,000 gift from The Anschutz Foundation will support the strategic growth of the CWHR and its mission to transform women’s health. It adds to the more than $100 million in gifts made to the University of Colorado over the years by The Anschutz Foundation, including the series of gifts for which the Anschutz Medical Campus is named.