Research

About Us

Children's Funding from NIH

Today at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC we are expanding our research programs as never before. Incredibly, our scientists are exploiting advanced technologies that enable investigation of disease all the way down to the molecular level to gain knowledge necessary to develop new therapies for our patients. Diabetes, heart defects, childhood cancer, and genetic disorders are just a few of the targets Children's investigators have set their sights on.

When it comes to research, much distinguishes Children’s from other pediatric medical institutions.

Since 2000, our research program has grown faster than any other pediatric hospital in the United States. Children’s funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – currently over $23 million – is triple what it was at the start of this decade.
Research is fundamental to our mission, and it’s a mission that ties clinical care to both research and education. As such, each of Children’s investigators is a full-time member of the of the University of Pittsburgh faculty.
Our research heritage includes contributions to medical science dating back to Jonas Salk's historic polio vaccine.
We have more than 350 scientists and clinicians dedicated to research, with 16 endowed chairs supporting our groundbreaking research.
Children’s currently ranks among the top ten pediatric research units in the country in terms of funded research programs.
Our Department of Pediatrics alone has more than 400 funded research projects, a tenfold increase over 2001 levels.
Children’s is home to the Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center (PCTRC) one of only a handful of NIH-funded centers in the nation devoted to pediatric research.
For basic research, Children’s has a dedicated facility, the John G. Rangos Sr. Research Center which opened in November 2008 on the new hospital campus in Lawrenceville. With 300,000 square feet of laboratory space, the 10-story state-of-the-art facility is triple the size of children's previous research center.
Children's new Pediatric Environmental Medicine Center studies how environmental exposures, such as secondhand smoke, mold, air pollution and other contaminants, impact the health of children and influence the prevalence of asthma.
Children’s will soon be home to the Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research, a one of a kind incubator dedicated to advancing and strengthening the field of pediatric research.