The $10.6 billion budget signed by Governor Janet Napolitano on Monday includes a handful of bioscience-related line items, most notably major funding for the Phoenix Biomedical Campus and Science Foundation Arizona.
The Phoenix Biomedical Campus will benefit from $25 million primarily for continued development and expansion of the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix Campus in Partnership with Arizona State University. This includes:
- $6 million to expand the annual College of Medicine class size to 48 students from 24
- $4 million for allied health programs of Northern Arizona University
- $2 million for the ASU Department of Biomedical Informatics
- $1.5 million for the UA College of Pharmacy
- $1 million for the Arizona Telemedicine Program of UA
- $10.5 million to design two new education and research buildings to house programs of ASU, UA, and NAU.
Science Foundation Arizona is slated to receive $100 million over the next four years for grants to support science, engineering, and medical research programs in Arizona. The funds are subject to a match of private monies.
Among other bioscience-related items included in the budget are:
- Alzheimer’s Disease: $4 million to the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium.
- Autism: $2.3 million to the Arizona Department of Economic Security for autism services.
- Business development: $1.8 million to the Arizona Department of Commerce to foster business initiatives that include growth in high-tech sectors, foreign direct investment in Arizona, and strategic research and development; $700,000 for the Arizona Global Network to attract foreign business.
- Education: $27 million in new funding for Joint Technological Education Districts; $2.3 million to increase the number of math and science teachers in Arizona; $2.5 million for a competitive grant program to promote improved pupil achievement in math or science; establishment of a program providing loans to students pursuing a teaching degree who agree to teach math, science, or special education in an Arizona public school.
- Physician Workforce: $3 million in new funding for Graduate Medical Education programs to recruit and retain physicians in Arizona.
- Tissue Bank: $1 million to the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission to facilitate establishment of a nonprofit repository to store human stem cells of non-embryonic origin.
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