Notable contributions and programs
- Wayne State University raised nearly $900 million in its first-ever capital campaign, far surpassing its $500 million target. The money raised during the Wayne First campaign will go toward building projects, scholarships, faculty chairs and research.
- The School of Social Work is home to the Center for Social Work Practice and Policy Research, which generates knowledge that improves the lives of disadvantaged individuals, families and communities through a comprehensive approach to research, consultation and information dissemination.
- WDET-FM, a public service of Wayne State, has been recognized for broadcast excellence with awards from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, Michigan Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists Detroit Chapter.
- A $625,882 grant from the Detroit City Council is helping TechTown, the university’s research and technology park, bring more companies into its Detroit-Based Initiative business growth program. The money supports programs focused on creating new businesses, particularly those started by women and minorities.
- A $100,000 gift from the Ford Motor Co. Fund helps support SEED Wayne (Sustainable Food Systems Education and Engagement in Detroit), a new campus-community collaboration dedicated to building sustainable food systems at WSU and in Detroit neighborhoods. Among the SEED projects: a Warrior Demonstration Garden near the Undergraduate Library, where students grow herbs and vegetables primarily for dining hall meals; cafeteria composting; and an on-campus farmers market.
- The university is playing a major role in the most ambitious children’s health research project in history. The National Institutes of Health has expanded Michigan’s part in its National Children’s Study with a $57 million grant. The study is the largest research project ever undertaken to study children’s health and the causes of ailments such as autism, cerebral palsy and asthma. WSU will oversee the assessment and care of pregnant women in the study.
- Dr. Scott Gruber, professor and chief of the section of transplant surgery for the School of Medicine and director of the Organ Transplant Program at Harper University Hospital, led a team that performed the first two renal kidney transplants in HIV-positive patients in the state of Michigan.
- Dan Kashian, assistant professor of biological sciences received a $306,296 grant from the National Institute of Climate Change Research in the Department of Energy to study how the current outbreak of mountain pine beetles in the Yellowstone region is altering carbon cycling in forests and what effect this alteration may have on global climate change.
- A study led by Dr. John Flack, chair of the internal medicine department, indicates that a new combination of drugs (a calcium blocker and an angiotensin II reception blocker) causes the most significant drop in blood pressure.
- A new study by pediatrics Professor Dr. Enrique Ostrea, funded by a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will investigate the damages to neurological development caused by pesticides in the fetal environment.
- Dr. Csaba Juhasz, assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology, received a $1.5 million award from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health for a new imaging technique that can distinguish tumors from non-tumorous lesions.
