Atlanta’s own Emory University, along with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), has been awarded a $3 million five-year federal grant to build an international center for cardiometabolic disease research in New Delhi, India.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) awarded the grant. The grant will enable Emory’s science department to further research cardiovascular disease and diabetes, diseases that are affecting aggressively more young people. Additional funding for the global research center will be provided by UnitedHealth Group’s Ovations Chronic Disease Initiative.

Training will be provided to young scientists in India and Pakistan to perform critical heart disease and diabetes research. The goal will be to study the effects and risk factors of each, and research prevention of the diseases. Students and faculty of Emory University will interact and collaborate in the research.

The center will be one of many in a network of research centers established by NHLBI with the goal to prevent primarily cardiovascular disease, but address diabetes and other linked diseases. Researchers will test 4,000 people in three different staging areas – New Delhi and Chennai, India and Karachi, Pakistan. Those tested will be followed to identify which ones develop future heart disease.

The purpose will be two-pronged. They first want to understand what can be done to prevent or postpone the onset of heart disease and diabetes. The second approach will be that once an individual develops either disease, what steps can be taken to detour further complications of the disease.

In addition, 1,200 test subjects already diagnosed with diabetes will be recruited from India and Pakistan. Various heart disease and diabetes treatments will be used on the test subjects to determine their effectiveness.

Interestingly, the U.S.. government has many grants available for those studying in the medical field. Most of the grants do not have income restrictions. There are some pre-requisites, but anyone meeting the criteria is eligible to further pursue credentials in the field specified. For more information, visit this federal website – www.govloans.gov. Under “Loan Quick Search,” select the “Education” link.