President Barack Obama’s federal budget proposal would eliminate a $318 million fund for graduate medical education at children’s hospitals.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital has received an $11.5 million federal contract for a project that involves genetic testing of tumors from more than 10,000 patients with one of 20 different cancers.

The award will fund research of muscular dystrophy therapies that have shown promise in animals, including replacing defective genes responsible for muscular dystrophy with healthy ones.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. looked at what it was paying for heart treatments across the country and didn’t like what it saw, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. So the home-improvement retailer went shopping, choosing the Cleveland Clinic. Could this practice become a model for health care reform?

Ohio State University spent $703 million on research and development in fiscal 2008, making it the 10th-largest research college in the country and seventh-largest among public universities, according to the National Science Foundation, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Tim Moran still remembers hearing his prematurely born daughter scream when an adult-sized cannula was inserted in her mouth and taped to her face to deliver oxygen. Several years later, Moran has started PediaWorks, a not-for-profit organization that will work with medical professionals to develop pediatric medical devices, spinning off for-profit companies to commercialize those devices.

State and local officials gave $117 million in tax incentives to win expansion of a West Chester pharmaceutical plant whose owner, Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., never had serious intentions to go anywhere else, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Issues surrounding government reimbursement and federal tax policy topped the agenda among Ohio health companies and hospitals’ major concerns last year, interviews and publicly filed lobbying reports revealed. The Cleveland Clinic, Elyria-based Invacare Corp. and Dublin-based Cardinal Health Inc. led the way in spending amongst Ohio health care organizations and companies, all spending in excess of $1 million in their federal lobbying efforts last year.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital plans to break ground this year for the third research building and final piece of an $840 million strategic expansion plan announced in 2005. The entire expansion plan is expected to create 2,000 jobs and deliver a $1.3 billion economic impact each year.

Thousands of Ohioans could lost their homes and possibly even their health and lives right now, not because of the loss of jobs but rather state budget cuts to mental health services, according to WKSU News.