Delaware State University has earned nearly $11 million in new federal funding for its scientific collaboration with the University of Delaware.
The award is the biggest gift DSU has received in its history.
The National Institutes of Health awarded $10.5 million to DSU in 2012 to establish the Delaware Center for Neuroscience Research. It was the first to a historically black college.
The initial gift helped establish the neuroscience research center and paid for the hiring of investigators and faculty members.
Researchers said the renewal of funds will help them build off their accomplishments of the past five years.
UD Professor Charles Riordan said understanding the brain is to understand what it means to be human.
“Certainly the brain is perhaps the last frontier in life sciences and understanding human health," he said. "It is unlike any other organ in the human body. It’s certainly the most complex organ in the human body.”
Delaware officials like Gov. John Carney (D-Delaware) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware) said the grant renewal positions the state as a national leader in neuroscience research.
Carney said the renewed funding helps prepare the next generation of Delaware researchers and innovators.
“We need to produce scientists and researchers and people that are capable in leading our state and its companies into a very very competitive competitive world,” he said.
The new money will support additional hiring and an MRI machine to scan rodent brains.
