Zhenyu Li Receives ASH Bridge Grant Award

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 30, 2013) — Zhenyu Li, assistant professor in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center, received a bridge grant to support critical blood disease research during current period of funding restrictions from the American Society of Hematology (ASH).

Li has been at UK since 2008. He was previously a research assistant professor in pharmacology at the University of Illiniois at Chicago where he received his postdoctorate training in pharmacolgy in 2003. Li received his doctorate in hematology from Soochow University and his master's degree and doctorate of medicine at Nantong University. He is currently researching platelet function and thrombosis in the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease.

ASH, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to the causes and treatment of blood disorders, announced the first recipients of the ASH Bridge Grants, including Li and 16 other researchers. The bridge grants are a new award program designed to help hematologists continue their critical blood disease research amid severe funding reductions for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The first round of ASH’s one-year, $100,000 bridge grants will allow 17 basic, clinical and translational hematology researchers whose NIH R01 series grant applications were deemed excellent by NIH peer review but not funded due to budget cutbacks to continue their critical research on blood diseases.

ASH committed $9 million in July 2012 to create the grant program intended to provide its member researchers with critical interim support to sustain their hematology research during a time of sustained NIH budget cuts, including a $1.6 billion cut this year plus additional cuts to come over the next several years as a result of sequestration.

Visit www.hematology.org/bridgegrantrecipients to view the complete list of inaugural ASH Bridge Grant recipients. To learn more about ASH’s bridge grant program, visit www.hematology.org/bridgegrants.

The American Society of Hematology is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood.

MEDIA CONTACT: allison.elliott@uky.edu