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Grant Award

BU ADRC Receives Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Grant

ADRC is one of 33 projects receiving a total of $10M+ to advance women’s health research, strengthen scientific collaboration, and expand shared biomedical resources across Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center’s (MLSC) Women’s Health Initiative, the Women’s Health Collaboration track of the Accelerating Research through Collaboration (ARC) Awards, and the Biobank program, awarded more than $10M in funding to support groundbreaking research on historically underfunded women’s health conditions, expanding access to critical research infrastructure, and strengthening partnerships that accelerate scientific discovery across Massachusetts. 

Since 2019, the MLSC has invested more than $22M in women’s health research and innovation, helping catalyze more than $70M in follow-on funding. These awards build on that momentum by advancing projects focused on diseases and conditions that uniquely, disproportionately, or differently affect women, reinforcing Massachusetts’ commitment to improving health outcomes for every patient population.  

Biobank Program 

The MLSC is investing $2M through the Biobank program to support 13 projects at 11 academic medical centers and research institutions, expanding access to patient biospecimens and associated clinical data. Working across Massachusetts, these partners will help establish disease-specific biobanks sourced from diverse patient populations, providing researchers and life sciences companies with the resources needed to accelerate biomedical discovery. 

The MLSC is partnering with academic medical centers as well as industry leaders to build the Biobank program’s core infrastructure, with Advarra, DNAnexus, Datavant and Azenta, supporting ethics and regulatory oversight, secure data systems, privacy-preserving data linkage and biospecimen management. Based on insights from an ecosystem-wide survey, Alzheimer’s disease and colorectal cancer were selected as the program’s initial focus areas, with additional disease areas to follow in future rounds. Together, these efforts will expand access to high-quality biospecimens and linked data, strengthen collaboration across Massachusetts’ research community and support the development of new diagnostics and therapies. 

Awardees include:  

• Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine  
  Project Title: Alzheimer’s Disease Sample Collection 
• Boston Medical Center Health System  
  Project Title: Colorectal Cancer Sample Collection  

We’re grateful for this support, which will help us expand collection of patients’ biofluids and tissue to accelerate better, earlier diagnoses and new therapies for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Thor Stein, MD, PhD, director, neuropathology core, BU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (BU ADRC). “Through the Center, we’ll also deepen efforts to understand how repetitive traumatic brain injury increases Alzheimer’s disease risk and affects long-term brain health so patients and families benefit from more informed care.” 

“Boston Medical Center is the largest essential hospital in New England, giving us a unique opportunity and responsibility to advance research that addresses the health needs of all communities,” said Megan Bair-Merritt, MD, MSCE, vice president and chief scientific officer, Boston Medical Center Health System and professor of pediatrics at the school of medicine. “Investments like those made by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center advance exactly the kind of rigorous, inclusive science we believe in — research designed not just to generate knowledge, but to close the diagnostic and treatment gaps that our patients live with every day and ensure that the discoveries we make reach the people who need them most.” 

Women’s Health Initiative 

The MLSC is providing more than $6.5 million through its Women’s Health Initiative to support 18 awardees across 14 projects advancing research in Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension and Perimenopause/Menopause, two prevalent but historically underfunded areas of research in the biomedical field. The initiative helps researchers move promising discoveries closer to clinical application while ensuring a broad spectrum of Women’s Health challenges are addressed over time. 

Awardees Focused on Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension include: 

• Sheree Boulet, DrPh, Boston Medical Center 
  Project Title: Massachusetts Preeclampsia Research & Equity Consortium (MAPREC) – A Machine Learning Approach to Preeclampsia Risk Prediction in a Diverse Population 
• Joyce Wong, PhD, Boston University, College of Engineering 
  Project Title: A Novel Biomimetic Model of Spiral Artery Remodeling to Screen a Drug Repurposing Library for Preeclampsia 

Awardees Focused on Perimenopause and Menopause include: 

• Brianne Connizzo, PhD, Boston University, College of Engineering  
  Project Title: Influence of Menopause on Tendon’s Response to Exercise 

“Our team is excited to receive funding from MLSC from the Women’s Health Initiative,” said Joyce Wong, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering and materials science & engineering. “Their support is critical towards moving forward women’s health research in the Commonwealth.” 

To read the full release, click here