WVU Health Sciences leader participates in Capitol Hill briefing

Ming Lei, West Virginia University Health Sciences senior associate vice president for research and graduate education, recently traveled to Capitol Hill to discuss the impact of National Institutes of Health research funding to West Virginia alongside U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

The briefing focused on a new report from United for Medical Research based on an economic analysis of seven rural states, including West Virginia, from 2016-2022.

“Coinciding with rural states’ small medical research footprint is the high disease burden and low life expectancy suffered by their populations,” Lei said. “A targeted increase of NIH funding in rural states is much needed to bend the curve of increasing urban-rural health disparity and to support NIH’s mission to ‘optimize health and prevent or reduce illness for all people.’”

The report showed that West Virginia benefitted from $267 million in NIH research awards that supported 3,664 jobs and $549 million in new economic activity, or $2.1 dollars of economic activity for each dollar of NIH research funding.

Lei assumed his role at WVU in August after serving as director of the Division for Research Capacity at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences since 2008.

In addition, Lei serves as vice dean of research for the WVU School of Medicine and professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology.