WVPA Sharing

$6 million goes to Marshall and WVU to aid research, rural health

Funds to support Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute at WVU

More than six million dollars remaining in a court settlement account has been transferred to West Virginia University and Marshall University.

Celebrating the transfer of more than $3 million to the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute Thursday (Dec. 22) were, from left, BRNI Co-director Shana Phares; WVU President E. Gordon Gee; claims administrator Edward (Ted) Gompers; BRNI Co-director George Spirou, Ph.D.; Marshall County Circuit Judge David W. Hummel; Wheeling attorney R. Dean Hartley; and Charleston attorney E. William Harvit.

The funds were split equally between the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) at WVU and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health at Marshall under a court order issued by Judge David W. Hummel of Marshall County, West Virginia, in late November. The order ended a decade-long court case, William K. Stern, et. al. vs Chemtall, Inc., et al.

Judge Hummel, along with Wheeling attorney R. Dean Hartley, Charleston attorney E. William Harvit, and claims administrator Edward (Ted) Gompers, traveled to Morgantown and Huntington today (Dec. 22) to present checks for $3,087,500 to each school.

“The  case, which obtained class status, sought and obtained medical monitoring for coal preparation plant workers and waste water treatment workers who had been exposed to a chemical neurotoxin,” Hartley said.

At WVU, the funds will support the research programs in Alzheimer’s disease and other neuroscience fields. BRNI recently announced a recruitment push in quantitative neurosciences that will bring bioscientists, mathematicians, physicists and engineers together to study the complex structure and function of the brain.

“These dollars will directly support our research program, and make WVU even more competitive on a national level,” said George Spirou, Ph.D., co-director of BRNI. “We are taking aim at diseases of the brain that have an impact on thousands of families in West Virginia every year, and this will push that work forward.”

At Marshall, funding will be used to continue work in rural health, specifically tackling barriers like isolation that many rural providers and rural people encounter. These efforts are coordinated through the Center for Rural Health in concert with Marshall’s department of family and community health and other primary care departments.

“With modern technology and these resources, we can go a long way to ensure better access to health care for our citizens in southern West Virginia and beyond,” said Jennifer T. Plymale, MA, director of the Byrd Center for Rural Health. “Additionally, we can build on innovative educational efforts that have been successful in graduating quality primary care physicians practicing in areas of need throughout West Virginia and the surrounding Appalachian region, as well as continuing our work with community partners on the center’s  outreach endeavors that are designed to encourage the development of new and innovative health care delivery systems in rural communities that lack essential health care services.”

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

And get our latest content in your inbox

Invalid email address