06.17.24

Durbin, Duckworth Announce More Than $15 Million In Health Care Related Grants For Illinois

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today announced $15,121,547 in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grants to Illinois institutions. A large portion of the funding will be put toward research programs across the state to support medical advancement in various fields, ranging from cancer research to increasing the number of nursing faculty nationwide.

  

“Federal investments in medical research and health care programs push our society forward, bringing us new treatments for the serious conditions that impact so many American families,” said Durbin. “Illinois’ world-class research institutions will make good use of this federal funding to make devastating diseases more treatable, support prevention programs, and provide training for our health care professionals.”

“Throughout Illinois, our universities and world-class research institutions continue to be industry leaders paving the way for the future of healthcare,” Duckworth said. “This federal support will help these institutions succeed as they work to discover medical innovations, cures and treatments to help patients across our state and nation.”

Recipients of HHS grants related to medical research include:

  • University of Chicago (Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry Research): $401,296
  • University of Illinois at Chicago (Lung Diseases Research): $480,883
  • Northwestern University at Chicago (Cancer Treatment Research): $366,000
  • Northwestern University at Chicago (Cancer Treatment Research): $716,911

Recipients of HHS grants related to health care programs:

  • Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Black Lung/Coal Miner Clinics Program): $1,160,847
  • Northwestern University of Chicago (Graduate Training Program for Magnetic Resonance Imaging): $280,080
  • Illinois Department of Public Health (Cancer Prevention and Control Programs for State, Territorial, and Tribal Organizations): $8,316,420
  • Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (Children’s Graduate Medical Education Program): $2,169,402
  • University of Chicago (Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program): $1,000,000
  • Lewis University (Nurse Faculty Loan Program): $101,937
  • Loyola University of Chicago (Nurse Faculty Loan Program): $127,771

Durbin has long been a strong advocate for robust medical research.  His legislation, the American Cures Act, would provide annual budget increases of five percent plus inflation at America’s top four biomedical research agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense Health Program, and the Veterans Medical and Prosthetics Research Program.  Thanks to Durbin’s efforts to increase medical research funding, Congress has provided NIH with a 60 percent funding increase over the past nine years.

Durbin has also introduced the bipartisan Nurse Faculty Shortage Reduction Act, which would provide a federal wage differential for the salary gap between clinical nursing and nurse faculty roles to help fill desperately needed nurse faculty positions across the country.  This program would operate alongside the Health Resources and Service Administration’s (HRSA) existing Nurse Faculty Loan Repayment Program (NFLP), to address a given nursing school or program’s needs.

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