Marguerite "Ryan" Irvin, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has received an Emerging Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Irvin is the first investigator from the UAB School of Public Health and third at UAB to receive this award.

The award provides Irvin more than $6 million over seven years to evaluate genetic risk scores that can help predict personal risk for cardiovascular and renal diseases, as well as African Americans' treatment responses to common antihypertensive therapies. The study will test existing scores developed in other ethnic groups and create new and hopefully better-performing scores for comparison.

The NHLBI R35 Program provides long-term support to experienced principal investigators who have demonstrated their ability to make major contributions to heart, lung, blood and sleep research. The R35 is intended to support a research program, rather than a research project, by providing the primary and most likely sole source of NHLBI funding on individual grant awards.