FDA, NIH partner to enhance tobacco-related research

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are working together to support tobacco-related research by funding more than a dozen new Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS).

As part of an ongoing interagency partnership, the two agencies have awarded some $53 million in fiscal year 2013 to create 14 TCORS across the U.S..

A new, first-of-its-kind regulatory science tobacco program, TCORS is designed to generate research to inform the regulation of tobacco products to protect public health, the agencies noted in a press release. Using designated funds from the FDA, TCORS will be coordinated by NIH's Office of Disease Prevention and administered by three NIH institutes: the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

The TCORS awards represent a significant investment in federal tobacco regulatory science, including $53 million in the first year and a potential total of more than $273 million for the next five years. TCORS funding may not exceed $4 million in total costs per year per center, and an investigator could request a project period of up to five years.

TCORS proposals were selected for funding based on their scientific and technical merit as determined by NIH scientific peer review, availability of funds, and relevance of the proposed projects to program priorities. Here are the 14 TCORS award recipients:

• Aruni Bhatnagar, PhD, and Rose M. Robertson, MD, American Heart Association
• Pamela Clark, PhD, University of Maryland
• Thomas Eissenberg. PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University
• Michael Eriksen, PhD, Georgia State University
• Stanton Glantz, PhD, University of California-San Francisco
• Stephen Higgins, PhD, University of Vermont and State Agriculture College
• Robert Hornik, PhD, and Caryn Lerman PhD, University of Pennsylvania
• Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD, and Stephanie O'Malley, PhD, Yale University
• JoshuaMuscat, PhD, and Jonathan Foulds, PhD, Penn State College of Medicine/Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
• Mary Ann Pentz, PhD, and Jonathan Samet, MD, University of Southern California
• Cheryl Perry, PhD, University of Texas Health Sciences Center
• Kurt Ribisl, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Peter Shields, MD, and Mary Ellen Wewers, PhD The Ohio State University
• Robert Tarran, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Medicine