USF Pediatrics is ranked #1 in the nation for NIH funding. USF Ob/Gyn is #10.

The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine colleges and several of its departments improved their rankings in the latest reports from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR) annual tabulations of total funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

• The Department of Pediatrics ranked #1 in 2015, up from #2 last year.
• The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine ranked #48 among the 139 medical schools with NIH funding in 2015, up from #63 last year.
• The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology ranked #10 in 2015, with no ranking last year.
• The USF Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology ranked #37 in 2015, up from #49 last year.

In addition, the USF College of Nursing ranked #24 among 66 institutions with NIH funding in 2015, up from #43 last year.

Based on the BRIMR methodology, NIH funding to USF Health colleges totaled $87.5 million in 2015. There were increases in funding throughout the College of Medicine. Of particular note are the awards made to Jeffrey Krischer, PhD, Distinguished University Health Professor and his team. Dr. Krischer’s NIH-funded research in the BRIMR report totals more than $64 million, making him the #1 highest funded principal investigator in the world.

Dr. Krischer oversees the Data Coordinating Center of the USF’s Health Informatics Institute. The center coordinates, analyzes and maintains research data from several large clinical networks investigating the causes and outcomes of type 1 diabetes, including TEDDY, TrialNet, TRIGR and DPT-1, and of rare diseases.

“These enhanced rankings show solid progress for USF Health in the past two years and are a direct result of our increasingly laser-like focus on, and ongoing success in,  garnering NIH funding,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “For our Morsani College of Medicine, this is our best performance on record. We have now increased from #88 in 2013 to #63 in 2014 to #48 among U.S. medical schools in 2015. However, we have much work to do to maintain these gains and advance further.  The opening of the new USF Health Heart Institute in a thriving amenity-rich waterfront location in downtown Tampa proximate to our nationally ranked cardiology and cardiac surgery programs at Tampa General Hospital should accelerate our success in obtaining additional NIH funding.”

“This ranking is a credit to our outstanding scientists, faculty and staff who, together, form an incredible team that is passionate about transforming healthcare through research,” said Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, senior associate vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF College of Nursing. “I am so proud of each and every one of them who devote their energies, creativity, and experience to furthering the science of nursing and making the USF College of Nursing one of the premier institutions in the world.”

The BRIMR rankings provide an annual look at how institutions and science departments fared in attaining much-coveted federal funding from the NIH.

Only about a decade old – around the time the NIH stopped tallying and ranking schools and departments by their funding totals – the Blue Ridge rankings were started. Retired professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Robert Roskoski, Jr., began synthesizing the NIH data tables into an annual set of reports ranking colleges who typically garner NIH funding and the basic science and clinical departments typically found in colleges of medicine who get NIH funding.

Like other national rankings, the annual reports have quickly become a much-used data point for NIH funded programs across the country.