Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans (LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans), a U.S. state government educational institution and academic medical center headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, operates as a prime recipient on federal research grants and prime contractor on specialized medical-services delivery contracts, with roughly 85% of awards in a prime role. The organization competes without set-aside designation across full-and-open federal procurements and research programs.

LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans delivers biomedical research and clinical medical services to the federal government. On the research side, the institution functions as a prime recipient on National Institutes of Health (NIH) project grants spanning alcohol research, cancer biology, infectious disease, neuroscience, and cardiovascular disease. On the services side, the institution executes single-award indefinite-delivery contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VISN 16) for anatomical autopsy and offsite teleradiology services supporting the VA medical center in New Orleans. Recent contract work includes a $464,525 delivery order from VISN 16 (November 2025) for offsite teleradiology services through September 2026; a $153,771 delivery order from the National Cancer Institute (September 2026) for the SEER-Linked Virtual Tissue Repository program through September 2027; a $99,442 purchase order from NCI (May 2024) for the Patterns of Care Study examining prostate cancer and ovarian cancer treatment patterns in patients diagnosed in 2021; and a $1.235 million definitive contract from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (September 2023) for preclinical medications screening in animal models of alcoholism, with FY2024 and FY2025 SCI invoicing at $187 thousand and $194 thousand respectively.

Customer concentration centers on the Department of Health and Human Services and its component NIH institutes. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 49% of all awards, led by the NIH broadly (110 awards), followed by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (73 awards, $2.4 million combined potential value), the National Cancer Institute (60 awards, $927.9 million combined potential value), the Health Resources and Services Administration (46 awards), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (39 awards). By dollar magnitude, the National Cancer Institute dominates at $927.9 million combined potential value across 60 awards—a figure that reflects a large SEER surveillance cooperative agreement. The Veterans Affairs VISN 16 ranks fourth by potential value at $572 thousand across 9 awards, signaling a sustained regional clinical-services relationship.

The organization places task orders under the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) IDC (8 task orders, $18.2 million combined potential value) and holds a single-award IDC with VISN 16 for anatomical autopsy services. Activity has remained steady at 43–50 awards per year from 2023 through 2026; 54 awards carrying $18.5 million in combined potential value reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, exposing the organization to significant recompete activity.

The institution conducts SCI-reportable federal service-contract work across FY2022–FY2025, with total prime invoicing of $6.8 million. SCI-reported median government-paid hourly rates center around $78.32/hr for labor, with 10th percentile rates near $53.17/hr and 90th percentile rates reaching $191.06/hr, reflecting a mix of clinical, research, and technical labor. The vendor workforce trajectory on reportable federal service contracts ranged from 10.1 to 20.8 FTEs annually, with a recent decline to 1.1 FTEs in FY2025 reflecting the smaller scale of SCI-eligible contracts relative to the organization's total research and clinical footprint. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, 6% of contractor hours on average derived from named subcontractors, indicating that the organization performs the majority of its contracted federal services work internally.

On the federal grant side, LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans acts as prime recipient across NIH R01, R21, K01, F30, and F99/K00 career-development awards, with representative recent funding including a $1.887 million NIAAA R01 (September 2025) for geroprotective precision-medicine strategies in people with HIV who use alcohol; a $723,353 NIDA R01 (September 2026) examining HIV-associated premature aging through cannabinoid anti-inflammatory mechanisms; a $621,353 NCI R01 (July 2026) investigating protein S as a dual-action therapeutic for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; a $748,679 National Institute on Aging R01 (August 2026) on cannabis and Alzheimer's disease neuropathology in people living with HIV; and a $7.49 million NSF CREST Phase 1 award (September 2025) for the Center for Adaptive Nanomotor Development. The institution also holds a $7.050 million HHS Congressional Directive construction award (September 2023) for facility improvements. Grant subawards and prime arrangements with other institutions (University of Tennessee, University of Pittsburgh, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Tulane University, Georgetown University, and others) position LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans as a hub in regional and national research consortia addressing HIV, cancer, infectious disease, and health disparities.

As a child entity of Louisiana State University, the organization leverages the parent's land-grant research infrastructure while maintaining independent federal prime-award authority. The research portfolio reflects core institutional strengths in alcohol-related disease mechanisms, HIV pathogenesis and comorbidities, cancer prevention and treatment, and clinical and translational research supporting minority and underserved populations in Louisiana and beyond.