Dailey receives $1.5 million NIH grant

UGA microbiologist Harry Dailey has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a class of previously unidentified of anemias:

Dailey will receive funding over the next four years from the highly competitive SHINE—Stimulating Hematology Investigation: New Endeavors—program supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, or NIDDK, part of the National Institutes of Health.

"The SHINE program was designed to encourage and support research into specific areas that the NIDDK felt would lead to the identification of the molecular basis for some idiopathic anemias," said Dailey, director of the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute at UGA and a professor of microbiology and biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Anemia is the most common blood disorder in the U.S., affecting more than 3.5 million Americans. The disease is characterized by a decrease in the level of healthy red blood cells or in hemoglobin, the red blood cell's predominant, oxygen-carrying protein.

Congratulations to Dailey, whose lab has been a powerhouse of fundamental research on blood disorders for many years. Its success has attracted many top graduate students, multiplying Dailey's impact on his field many times over. This grant is an important acknowledgement for Dailey and his Franklin colleagues, as well as crucial support for their work.

Image: Harry Dailey in his lab, courtesy of the University of Georgia.