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Texas Tech Health Sciences Center receives $24.5 million NIH grant - KCBD

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center just landed a $24.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the largest NIH award in the university system's history.
The money funds a five-year push to move health care research out of the lab and straight to patients' front doors. Dr. Lance McMahon, Dr. Julie St. John and Dr. Naima Moustaid-Moussa lead the effort as principal investigators. TTUHSC researchers have already spent time identifying health priorities and building solutions, and this grant lets them expand that work instead of starting over.
For Lubbock, this is a big deal beyond campus. TTUHSC sits at the center of health care research for the South Plains and a huge stretch of West Texas, and a grant this size signals the NIH sees real potential in what's happening here. This isn't a one-off study. It's a sustained effort to turn research into actual care people can use, not just findings that sit in a journal.
For folks here, that could eventually mean better access to health solutions built specifically around what this region needs, not generic programs designed somewhere else. Rural and underserved communities across West Texas often get left out of major research investment. This grant puts Lubbock at the front of that conversation instead of the back.
Common questions
What is the $24.5 million grant for?
- The grant funds a five-year effort by Texas Tech Health Sciences Center to move health care research from the lab directly to patients. Doctors Lance McMahon, Julie St. John and Naima Moustaid-Moussa lead the project as principal investigators, building on health priorities TTUHSC researchers had already identified.
Who is leading the research?
- Three TTUHSC principal investigators lead the effort: Dr. Lance McMahon, Dr. Julie St. John and Dr. Naima Moustaid-Moussa. They're building on work already done identifying health priorities and developing solutions, using the new funding to expand that research instead of starting from scratch.
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