The UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint department in the School of Medicine and School of Engineering, ranked fifth in the nation in the amount of funding it received from the National Institutes of Health in 2018, marking the third-straight year the department has ranked in the NIH’s top 5.

The BME department brought in $5,285,777 in NIH grant funding in 2018, up more than $425,000 from the previous year and marking the first time BME has exceeded the $5 million mark. Among new funds added this year was a $750,000, five-year T32 grant—the first of its kind awarded to an engineering department in the state of Alabama.

“The steady growth of our department in recent years is an indication of the strong research teams we have at UAB,” said Jianyi “Jay” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D. “In 2018, we added significant funding that continues to enhance our stature among the nation’s most prominent biomedical engineering departments.”

The rankings are published by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, which lists all NIH funding for U.S. medical schools. The joint BME departments of Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Oregon Health & Science University, and Emory ranked first, second, and third, respectively.