Awards & More

Pitt Emeritus Trustee J. Roger Glunt Receives John Heinz Friend of Nursing Award
The Pennsylvania State Nurses Association has honored J. Roger Glunt (BUS ’60) with its John Heinz Friend of Nursing Award. Glunt was honored during the association’s 110-year anniversary celebration on Oct. 17 in Malvern, Pa., outside Philadelphia.

The award is given to a non-member of the association who has demonstrated leadership with a significant impact on nursing practice, nursing education, nursing administration, and/or nursing research within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Glunt, an Emeritus Trustee on Pitt’s Board of Trustees, is the president of Pittsburgh-based Glunt Developing Co. When he lost his sister Nancy (NURS ’62), a longtime dedicated nurse, to cancer in 2001, he created the Nancy Glunt Hoffman Memorial Fund—a $1.5 million endowment that established a chair in oncology nursing at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. Glunt is the chair of the school’s advancement committee, and in 2002, he received the School of Nursing’s Honorary Alumni Award.

NIH Awards $5.8 Million to Pitt Center for Kidney Research
The Pittsburgh Center for Kidney Research has been awarded a five-year grant totaling $5.8 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will support research facilities, educational programs, and pilot projects to enhance kidney-focused research at the University of Pittsburgh and related institutions.

The Pittsburgh Center for Kidney Research is one of seven George M. O’Brien Kidney Research Core Centers in the United States. It is also supported by the Pitt School of Medicine and its Department of Medicine. Established in 1987 by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the O’Brien centers bring together scientists from multiple institutions to collaborate on basic, clinical, and applied aspects of biomedical research in renal physiology and pathophysiology.

The Pittsburgh Center for Kidney Research supports four research facilities encompassing cellular physiology, single nephron and metabolomics, kidney imaging, and model organisms at the University of Pittsburgh. The center also supports a research facility at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.