Portland State University has been awarded a $5.9 million National Science Foundation Accelerating Research Translation (ART) grant to accelerate the translation of PSU research from the lab into companies, products and partnerships that strengthen the Portland-metro and Oregon economies. 

The three-year award — PSU’s largest NSF grant to date — arrives as the university’s research enterprise reaches new heights, with research expenditures rising from $74 million in fiscal year 2024 to $91 million in 2025 in fields with strong commercial potential, including artificial intelligence and computational intelligence, semiconductors and transportation and infrastructure. The ART grant is designed to close the gap between that research strength and the region's need for new companies, traded-sector jobs and industry investment.

"PSU's motto is ‘Let Knowledge Serve the City,’ and this award puts that commitment to work for our regional economy," said Ann Cudd, president of Portland State University. "Our researchers are producing discoveries with real commercial and civic value. This investment helps us turn more of that work into Oregon companies, Oregon jobs and Oregon solutions." 

In a new study, researchers describe the development and validation of a multi-ancestry polygenic risk score (PRS) for AD that performs much better than previously constructed ones, especially for genetically diverse groups. This expanded representation of population groups is crucial for developing more robust and universally applicable PRS models, which can improve risk prediction among an ancestrally diverse group of patients.