Georgetown University
Courtesy of Georgetown University | A federal appeals court ruled July 1that Badar Khan Suri will remain out of custody as his immigration case proceeds.
Georgetown University secured the highest research classification from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a framework that classifies research universities, for the 30th consecutive year, the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced Feb. 13.
The Carnegie Foundation awards the Research 1 (R1) distinction to accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities demonstrating high levels of research activity and recognizes institutions for their commitment to advancing knowledge and innovating across disciplines. In fiscal year 2023, Georgetown invested over $337 million in research and development to support a diverse range of projects across the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities and policy studies.
The Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) secured approximately $176 million in externally sponsored funding last fiscal year from sources including the National Institutes of Health and MedStar Health.
Jeffrey Huang, an associate professor of biology whose research focuses on multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment, said his team has identified a novel drug that reverses the effects of late-stage MS in mice, a finding that is expected to advance to human clinical trials.
“We went about our research purely because we were interested in understanding how to promote brain repair following experimental injury,” Huang told The Hoya. “One of the problems with MS is that with the advancement of the disease, the repair mechanism becomes more difficult and challenging, so identifying therapeutic strategies to enhance the repair mechanism in the brain may be beneficial in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.”
Katie Shen (CAS ’28), a student who works in Huang’s lab, said participating in laboratory research at Georgetown has enhanced her student experience.
“Being a part of a research team has been one of the most gratifying experiences at Georgetown,” Shen wrote to The Hoya. “I joined the lab with some basic knowledge on MS and rudimentary wet lab skills. However, I quickly learned that there’s a fundamental difference between what Georgetown science classes require of me and what being a part of research requires.”
From 2022 to 2023, Georgetown awarded over 185 research doctorates in addition to professional practice doctoral degrees. Students play an active role in many research initiatives, contributing to projects in medicine, policy and the social sciences.
Dr. Dan Merenstein, a professor of family medicine at the Georgetown School of Medicine who leads research to improve patient health in primary care settings, is currently conducting a $23.6 million study on sinus infections, one of the largest clinical trials of its kind, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Merenstein said that in his experience, students are highly involved with the entire research process.
“We have students do everything from data entry to driving to delivering and picking up samples and bringing them back to the lab,” Merenstein told The Hoya. “We have really bright students who push the faculty to continue high-quality research.”
Huang emphasized the perseverance required in the field of research.
“There are always going to be challenges,” Huang said. “You go through ups and downs with regard to funding and research success, but I think one of the reasons why we do what we do is because we enjoy and love what we do and we’re just genuinely curious.”
Merenstein said it is important to remain steadfast in research to achieve goals, citing his story of finding funding for his study.
“We did a pilot part and now we’re doing the full study,” Merenstein said. “I got that grant through a lot of resilience. I applied for that grant 12 or 13 times to many places, but finally, PCORI was a good home for it.”
Shen said she appreciates how research fosters invention and creativity.
“In research, there are no right or wrong answers — only data and experiments,” Shen wrote. “As the researcher, I have to learn how to innovate and develop new experiments that may or may not support a hypothesis. I find this uncertain aspect of research invigorating.”