Â鶹ÊÓƵ

AURORA, Colo. (September 19, 2018) - The ALSAM Foundation recently invested an additional $2 million to continue the Therapeutic Innovation Grants Program at the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The funding supports a second phase of grants for projects focused on drug discovery and development.

David Ross, PhD, chair of the CU Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and associate dean of research at the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy, is leading the school's efforts to identify new drug therapies and bring them to market quicker than ever before by supporting talented faculty.

"This support from The ALSAM Foundation is critical to our success," Ross said. "By allowing us to award grants to the best ideas at CU, we are able to support innovative approaches to identify the next generation of drugs to transform patient care."

The Therapeutic Innovation Grants Program encourages collaboration between the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and the CU BioFrontiers Institute in Boulder as well as faculty throughout CU Anschutz.

By awarding grants to researchers who build an interdisciplinary team from the CU School of Pharmacy, the BioFrontiers Institute at CU Boulder and from across the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, this fund will jumpstart some of the most transformational ideas at CU today.

"The ALSAM Foundation's generosity is fueling our innovative efforts and supporting high risk, high reward ideas in the laboratory," said CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Dean Ralph Altiere, PhD. "We are so grateful for their longtime partnership."

Some of the current active research areas include novel drug discovery efforts including high throughput and computational approaches, informatics and systems genetics, RNA-based therapeutics, immunotherapy and precision medicine.

Â鶹ÊÓƵ the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is the only comprehensive academic health sciences center in Colorado, the largest academic health center in the Rocky Mountain region and one of the newest education, research and patient care facilities in the world. Home to 21,000 employees, more than 4,300 degree-seeking students and two nationally recognized hospitals, CU Anschutz trains the health sciences workforce of the future and fuels the economy. CU Anschutz features schools of medicine, pharmacy, dental medicine and public health, a college of nursing and a graduate school. Learn more at ucdenver.edu/anschutz.