National Institutes of Health Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Opioid Settlement Foundation Commits $20 Million To New Program

The organization responsible for West Virginia’s opioid settlement money committed $20 million to an outcomes-based addiction recovery project.

In a special meeting of the West Virginia First Foundation (WVFF), the nonprofit’s board approved $20 million for the Appalachian Continuum of Care for Overdose Reduction Network (ACCORN) project.

While the board approved the $20 million commitment, a Monday afternoon press release clarified that WVFF must submit a formal application to the federal government for approval and funding. Final decisions are expected in early 2025.

This allocation is not part of the foundation’s Initial Opportunity Grant cycle, which was approved in September with a total of $19.2 million available in funding.That money will be sent to communities and organizations that apply for the money.

Executive Director Jonathan Board said while working through those grant applications, the foundation discovered other programs that might help fight the opioid epidemic.

“These things were happening all sort of concurrently, along with our Initial Opportunity Grants process, and we’re excited to have an opportunity to discuss one of these that has gone through this process here today,” Board said.

Dr. Matthew Christiansen, Region Four representative and state health officer, presented the financial structure of the ACCORN project to the board.

“It’s outcomes-based,” Christiansen said. “We wouldn’t pay unless they meet the measures on the front end. This is not money that goes out the door without accountability.”

Board told the WVFF board the ACCORN project has three measures it will focus on to improve outcomes to qualify to receive ARPA-H HEROES funding.

The first measure aims to reduce the number of infants born exposed to illicit drugs in West Virginia, called neonatal abstinence syndrome, also known as NAS.

West Virginia leads the nation in rates of infants born with NAS, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with 68 out of every 1,000 babies born in the state exposed to drugs in 2020.

The criteria for payment by the state will be a 10 percent reduction in rates of NAS after year two and a 15 percent reduction after year three.

The second measure aims to reduce the state’s rate of recidivism, the tendency for an offender to relapse into criminal behavior after their release from custody.

According to the most recent available data from West Virginia’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2020, West Virginia’s recidivism rate was 29.25 percent over a three-year period.

In a 2020 press release, DHS said among all the individuals released in 2016, nearly 21 percent had been convicted of drug-related offenses and their recidivism rate was 24 percent.

Jeff Sandy, former cabinet secretary of the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security and WVFF board member, said during Monday’s virtual meeting he is hopeful the ACCORN project will bring rates of recidivism down.

“I stress the importance of trying to do something to make life better for our convicted individuals in the state who have served their time and they’ve come out and they need help,” Sandy said. “They need help so they do not go back to their future ways, and this program has a branch of it that is designed to help those individuals who, when they get out of prison, they need support.”

The third and final measure requires participants in any ACCORN-funded program to be drug-screened twice per month.

The foundation’s most recent financial statement available on the website is from Oct. 31 and reflects a balance of about $226 million in the account.

NIH Funding Helps Create New Program At WVU

West Virginia University (WVU) is launching a new training program focused on the community health impacts of air pollution.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded WVU $1.7 million for a toxicology training program which will bridge the disciplines of toxicology and systems-based medicine.

“One of my big concerns with modern science is that students don’t fully appreciate how our body systems work,” said Timothy Nurkiewicz, director of the WVU Inhalation Facility, in a press release.

He said students will study the various systems of the body and determine how inhalation of specific toxicants impacts their function and health.

According to the university’s press release, toxicologists who have that blend of expertise can be especially important to public health in Appalachia, where chronic conditions and exposure to airborne toxicants often overlap.

Over a five year period, 40 doctoral students will collect air samples in the local environment and analyze them in WVU’s Inhalation Facility to assess their toxicity.

NIH Funding Also Boosts Local Economy, Provides Jobs, Brief Argues

In its proposed budget released this week, the Trump administration called for big cuts to national medical and science funding institutions. In response, a medical research advocacy organization has published a brief on the impact of National Institutes of Health funding.

Most National Institutes of Health or NIH funding goes to major research institutes such as Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania. But smaller institutions such as West Virginia University and Marshall also receive funding for research into health issues such if fracking has impacts on cardiovascular health.

The new report, published by the NIH advocacy organization United for Medical Research, argues that in addition to supporting vital medical research, NIH grants have broad economic impact on the labor force and local economy. In West Virginia, for instance, they report that in 2017 the state received more than $28 million in funding, which generated $6 million in taxes for local governments and supported around 400 jobs.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the NIH 12 percent and the National Science Foundation 13 percent. Medical and science research institutes around the country have pushed back against the proposal.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.

West Virginia University Researcher to Study Fracking Effect

A West Virginia University assistant professor has received a $450,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to look at how airborne particles that result from hydraulic fracturing affect human health.

In hydraulic fracturing, oil and gas are extracted from rock by injecting mixtures of water, sand and chemicals underground.

The university said in a news release that public health assistant professor Travis Knuckles will spend three years studying how the particles can make it harder to control how much blood enters the capillaries. He will also explore at how the particles can make it harder to turn oxygen into a chemical that is a primary energy source for cells.

Knuckles and his research team will look at whether fine particles released by fracking are more toxic than particles normally found in urban air.

WVU Student Awarded Funding for Diabetes Research

A West Virginia University graduate student is studying an unexplored enzyme that could lead to new diabetes treatments.

Stephanie Shumar is a graduate student in WVU’s School of Medicine and is studying biochemistry and molecular biology.

“This is kind of the initial step for us to be able to understand something that has not been studied before,” said Shumar. “Hopefully this will put another piece into the puzzle of the different things that are affected in metabolic diseases, like diabetes. Hopefully this will give us a better understanding and provide a framework and something that, further on down the line, can be used to help us treat diabetes.”

The university says in a news release that conventional diabetes medications work by stabilizing blood sugar levels, not by improving chemical processes behind how the body produces and processes blood sugar. Shumar says that’s like a motorist who doesn’t fix an antifreeze leak but instead keeps pouring more into the car.

Shumar was awarded $88,000 by the National Institutes of Health for a two-year investigation into how one enzyme regulates coenzyme A levels and glucose production in the liver. High concentrations of coenzyme A in the liver can affect blood sugar levels.

Marshall Announces Partnership with the University of Kentucky

Marshall University announced Wednesday it’s partnering with the University of Kentucky on a multimillion dollar research grant.

The two universities are partners in a $19.8 million grant from the National Institute of Health Clinical and Translational Science Award. The money helps further clinical and translational science initiatives, emphasizing medical research relevant to the community. The goal is to speed up the process of implementing laboratory findings in patient care. Joseph Shapiro is the Dean of the Marshall University School of Medicine.

“This partnership with the University of Kentucky is frankly much more important than the dollar figure because this establishes Marshall and our healthcare delivery system as a potential clinical hub for clinical research going forward,” Shapiro said.

As part of the federal grant to UK, Marshall will receive $640,000 over a four-year period for efforts to develop infrastructure and capacity for clinical and translational research through the recently formed Appalachian Clinical Translational Science Institute.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.