USA College of Medicine receives grant

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - More than 800 people die from pneumonia each year in Alabama.

The University of South Alabama's College of Medicine is working to reverse that number, and it just got a lot of money to do just that.

Scientists at the University of South Alabama's College of Medicine are all smiles after receiving a $9 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health.

"With difficult economic times, the ease you get funding has changed considerably. (It’s) very difficult to get support of the NIH right now. The success rate for these grants is less than ten percent," said Dr. Troy Stevens.

USA competed against schools nationwide to earn the funding.

The money will be used to study the causes and consequences of pneumonia.

The work done here will help patients battling the illness, starting with education and research in the lab directly to the bedside.

"So we will know how are we going to know what is going on, how will we know if they will get better or worse.

How to think outside of the box in developing new ways to help that patient get better," said Dr. Stevens.

The $9 million grant funds five years of research.

USA's College of Medicine has received grant money since 2001 but has had to reapply every five years and show how its work has impacted the understanding of the lung infection.

"I hope the community is understands the transformation that is happening at this University, taking it to the next level and I am proud to be apart of that," added Dr. Stevens.

Not only is the grant good for the College of Medicine, people here say it will boost the local economy, too.

"This grant will not only employee people directly here at the University, it will employee people in the community who will provide services and goods and equipment for this research to be done," said Dr. Ronald Franks, Vice President for Health Sciences.

This grant is one of the largest ever awarded to the University of South Alabama.

It is second only to a grant of more than $14 million. It was awarded to the College of Medicine in 2010.