CU Anschutz Campus is well known as an academic center of excellence in palliative care encompassing palliative care education, clinical practice, and research. Many of our palliative care faculty work across all three of these areas focused to grow the field of palliative care to improve the delivery of palliative care for persons living with serious illness.
We are excited to share that CU Anschutz School of Medicine (SOM) recently received a substantial award to further the science of palliative care. This is the single largest NIH grant for palliative care research to date and is a collaborative effort between several NIH institutes. The award is being administered by the National Institute on Aging with funding and collaboration from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Nursing Research, and National Cancer Institute.
The interprofessional palliative care group is referred to as the ASCENT Consortium, which stands for Advancing the Science of Palliative Care Across the Lifespan. Although housed at CU, the Consortium includes principal investigators from not only the University of Colorado School of Medicine, also includes: New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, Duke University School of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and includes 40 key personnel from more than 20 institutions, representing the interdisciplinary approach that is integral to palliative care.
Over 50% of the available funding is earmarked to directly support pilot and exploratory research grant awards. Research scholar awards will also be available. In the current climate of reduced funding for research and NIH cuts, this award is truly astonishing. This five-year NIH grant will be able to create a wellspring of future palliative care research with annual calls for proposals.
Dr. Jean Kutner, Distinguished Professor at the CU SOM and the founding director of CU Palliative Care Research Program is one of the five principal investigators of the ASCENT Consortium supported by NIH Research Grant 1U54 AG093230-01.
A heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Kutner and the ASCENT team! We are looking forward to seeing the results of this exceptional collaboration of palliative care research. The field of palliative care will be talking about the ASCENT Consortium for years to come.
To learn more, please visit the following links:
University Of Colorado To Lead $64 Million Palliative Care Consortium
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