The San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (SJB), under the leadership of President Dr. Yocasta Brugal, is pleased to share the exciting news of the approval of a highly competitive grant from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health ( NIH) under the Biomedical Research Facilities funding opportunity PAR-23-306. NIH funded the application with 6.31 million dollars to construct a new state-of-the-art building to expand research capacity and infrastructure, the “SJB Biomedical Research Center for Hispanic Health Disparities” (SJB BioReC). This new building aligns with SJB’s research vision of promoting clinical and translational scientific discoveries and innovation, emphasizing health issues affecting Hispanic populations.
We recognize the scientific contribution in writing this third successful submission of seven faculty researchers participating in the SJB-Research Center Grantsmanship Independent Research Development Program (GIRD) under Dr. Estape’s coaching for their commitment, dedication, and perseverance. These are : Dr. Yaritza Inostroza, Dr. Yamixa Delgado, Dr. Linda Laras, Dr. Linda Perez-Laras, Dr. Maricarmen Colon-Diaz, Dr. Sandra Chinapen and Dr. Ramon Scharbaai. We also thank our collaborators for their strong enthusiasm and letters of support, as well as our research mentors and Ad-honorem faculty for their help in moving forward with our faculty and students’ research agendas.
The SJB BioReC project includes a highly qualified team serving as key personnel. The Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) is Dr. Estela S. Estape, the Facility Manager (FM) is Dr. Shirley Valentin, and the Construction Project Manager (PM) is Architect Edgardo Gonzalez.
The success of this project will support SJB’s institutional commitment to increasing research capacity and providing the necessary resources, allowing investigators to contribute to translating research findings to eliminate health disparities and provide better healthcare. It is indeed exciting to be part of a process that will increase the number of Hispanic researchers involved in significant investigations supporting prevention, early diagnosis, and developing new, effective medical treatments.
