Dr. Michael Kruer will continue research on pediatric movement disorders
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A pediatrician and scientist at Sanford Health has received a grant totaling more than $500,000 to support his research on pediatric movement disorders. Michael Kruer, M.D., is the recipient of a three-year Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).
DDCF awarded more than $8 million in grants through the Clinical Scientist Development Award and the Clinical Research Mentorship programs, which aim to strengthen the clinical research field by providing opportunities that help advance the careers of young scientists. The Clinical Scientist Development Award is a prestigious award provided to promising young clinician investigators to support them early in their research careers and allow them to build upon promising early findings relevant to human health.
Kruer practices as a pediatric neurologist in the Sanford Children’s Specialty Clinic and the Sanford Children’s Hospital but also runs a lab at the Children’s Health Research Center. His laboratory studies the molecular and cellular basis of movement disorders and degenerative diseases in children. His project selected for funding is titled “New insights into molecular mechanisms driving pediatric movement disorders.”
“The Children’s Health Research Center is actively looking for ways to better understand the basis of pediatric diseases like the movement disorders my lab studies,” said Kruer. “I believe Sanford’s support of pediatric translational research made my project an attractive choice for the DDCF.”
A past recipient of the Child Neurology Foundation’s Shield Award, last summer Kruer was chosen by the National Institutes of Health for a five-year, $860,000 grant to study genetic forms of juvenile Parkinson’s disease and dystonia.
Since 1998, the DDCF has awarded 235 Clinical Scientist Development Awards totaling more than $101 million.
About Sanford Research
Sanford Research is a non-profit research organization and is part of Sanford Health, an integrated health system headquartered in the Dakotas. Sanford represents the largest, rural, not-for-profit health care system in the nation with a presence in 111 communities, nine states and two countries. In 2007, a transformational gift of $400 million by Denny Sanford provided for an expansion of children’s and research initiatives, one of which was to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, and has given Sanford Research significant momentum in its goal of becoming one of the premiere research institutions in the United States and the world. Most recently, subsequent gifts of more than $200 million by Mr. Sanford have paved the way to establish Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Research and Sanford Imagenetics.
With a team of more than 200 researchers, Sanford Research comprises several research centers, including Children’s Health Research, Edith Sanford Breast Cancer, Cancer Biology, Center for Health Outcomes and Prevention and Sanford Sports Science Institute.
http://www.sanfordresearch.org/newsevents/newsdetail23388.cfm?id=0,1827