The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is at the forefront of supporting the biomedical research industry in Baltimore.UMB and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) were jointly awarded a four-year, $4 million Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance the biomedical entrepreneurship and innovation economy in the Baltimore region.This grant will be used to build on the work that began when UMBC and the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) received a $13 million NIH Common Fund Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) grant in 2022 to enhance recruitment and training of junior faculty from groups underrepresented in biomedical science.UMB will also use the grant to create the University of Maryland, Baltimore Life Science Discovery (UM-BILD) Accelerator program’s “proof-of-concept” hub — one of only five NIH-funded proof-of-concept hubs in the U.S. — in the University of Maryland BioPark and at bwtech@UMBC.Jim Hughes, chief enterprise and economic development officer and senior vice president for UMB, spoke to the Baltimore Mayor and City Council recently about the impact of the grant.