USA Professor Wins $2.3-Million Grant

MOBILE, Ala. — The University of South Alabama (USA) recently announced that Dr. Mike Lin, associate professor of physiology and cell biology at USA’s Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, has been awarded a $2.3-million, five-year renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He will use the funds to further investigate the link between hospital-acquired pneumonia and impaired cognitive function in a collaboration between USA and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The study builds upon Lin’s previous research grant from NIH, which totaled $1.7 million over a four-year period. In the next phase of their studies, researchers will dive further into identifying the cytotoxic species generated in and distributed from the lung after infection. “This research is important because it links two seemingly unrelated organs together,” Lin explained. “This lung-brain axis is an example of an impairment that may start to manifest in the brain, perhaps even years after the primary lung injury has been cleared.”