WATERTOWN, Mass.—A Massachusetts contract research organization says it has received a $45 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue funding a study of congenital and acquired heart diseases that occur in childhood.
The New England Research Institutes says the grant provides five more years of funding to the Pediatric Heart Network to continue clinical research on congenital heart defects affecting about 40,000 infants in the United States each year.
The network was started in 2001. It includes nine clinical centers and Watertown-based New England Research Institutes as the data coordinating center.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute started the initiative to find treatment for children with heart disease.
Congenital heart defects are a major cause of infant death.
