Capitol News

For 17 years, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and Corewell Health in Grand Rapids have collaborated to fund exploratory and developmental research projects. This partnership, known as the Corewell Health – MSU Alliance Corporation, has provided over $27 million for these initiatives. Recently, they announced an additional $1 million investment in new grant funding aimed at advancing innovative treatments.

Aron Sousa, dean of MSU College of Human Medicine, emphasized the alliance's impact: “The innovation the Alliance brings to the Medical Mile in Grand Rapids continues to deliver incredible results.” He highlighted research areas such as obstetrics, gynecology, reproductive biology, autism causes, and chronic wound healing.

Five new projects will each receive $200,000 in funding next year:

- "Role of the HTR3A serotonin receptor in high-grade endometrial cancer" aims to understand serotonin's role in uterine cancers with poor prognosis. Principal investigators are John Risinger from MSU and Gregory Gressel from Corewell Health.

- "Deep brain stimulation for autism spectrum disorder" will test if light stimuli can improve hippocampal function related to memory and learning. Lucas Pozzo-Miller from MSU and Mike Bercu from Corewell Health lead this project.

- "The role of immune system genetics, the MTOR pathway and precision treatments in cardiac sarcoidosis" seeks to generate human data on a heart-impacting immune disorder while developing a mouse model for testing new drugs. Daniel Vogt from MSU and Nagib Chalfoun from Corewell Health are principal investigators.

- "Radiomic biomarkers for patients with small renal masses" focuses on developing biological markers using radiographic technologies to predict kidney tumor behavior. Adam Alessio from MSU’s colleges of Human Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine and Engineering collaborates with Emerson Lim from Corewell Health.

- "Oxygenating living biomimetic bandage for the treatment of refractory chronic wounds" aims to create a living bandage that delivers nonembryonic stem cells and oxygen to treat wounds more effectively. Nureddin Ashammakhi from MSU’s College of Engineering works with Drue Orwig from Corewell Health on this project.

Surender Rajasekaran, medical director of research at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids and associate professor at the College of Human Medicine stated: “The true mission of the Alliance is to enhance collaboration between physicians and scientists that normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to work together.”

Darryl Elmouchi, chief operating officer of Corewell Health explained their process: “There are windows of time where grants can be submitted...all submissions are reviewed by a panel...Ultimately...a select few are chosen.”

Since its inception, this partnership has also contributed significantly towards attracting top talent globally to Grand Rapids by recruiting 17 new scientists or physicians.