Meharry Medical College

Meharry Medical College, a historically Black, minority-owned non-profit academic health sciences center headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants and a prime contractor for medical education and training services, with 77% of recent awards in a prime role across health professions training, biomedical research, and community health initiatives. The institution competes full-and-open without set-aside restrictions, serving as one of the nation's largest HBCU medical centers and addressing health disparities among underserved populations.

Meharry's federal activity spans medical education tuition and fees, basic and translational biomedical research, STEM workforce development, and integrated clinical services. Representative contract work includes a $27,910.50 delivery order from the Department of the Navy for medical education and training services completed in May 2026, and a $742,286 cooperative agreement from NASA's Office of STEM Engagement running through August 2028 to attract students to STEM fields through NASA-connected learning opportunities. On the grant side, Meharry holds a $1.226 million NIH NIAID project grant (CFDA 93.855) awarded May 2026 investigating HIV-1 immune escape mutations through molecular mechanisms research, a $1.068 million NIGMS cooperative agreement (CFDA 93.859) supporting the BRE-SPAD Initiative for faculty and trainee research career advancement through March 2031, and a $5.981 million NIH construction grant (CFDA 93.352) awarded September 2025 to establish the Meharry Research Facilities for Advanced Genomics (MERFAG) supporting genomics research infrastructure and workforce development through January 2028.

Customer concentration runs heavily toward the National Institutes of Health and Health Resources and Services Administration on award count, with 94 and 52 awards respectively, though the Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Administration Veterans Integrated Service Network 9 anchors 74% of combined potential value at $21.2 million across 15 awards. The Department of the Navy places significant volume—41 awards with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for tuition and medical training—totaling $4.8 million in combined potential value. Five federal agencies (HHS NIH, HRSA, Navy, NIGMS, and SAMHSA) account for 37% of recent awards. Meharry does not hold parent contract vehicles (GWACs or agency-wide IDIQs); instead, it receives task orders under Navy indefinite delivery contracts—the primary vehicle is N0014098G2480 with 37 task orders valued at $3.4 million, complemented by V622P3019 (15 task orders, $2.7 million) and several Basic Ordering Agreements.

Recent activity has grown sharply—26 awards in 2022 to 67 in 2024, declining to 44 in 2025 and 26 in 2026 year-to-date. Forty-two awards (combined potential value $1.2 million) face completion in the next twenty-four months, representing recompete exposure. Meharry operates as a sub-recipient on 23% of recent awards, largely as a participant in Vanderbilt University Medical Center-led NIH research consortia (Tennessee Center for AIDS Research, VICTR, MUSIC Consortium) and as a sub-grant recipient under state departments of health and mental health in substance use disorder and addiction treatment programs.

Meharry's research footprint emphasizes HIV/AIDS pathogenesis and treatment disparities, cardiometabolic disease in African American populations, data science and artificial intelligence applied to healthcare, genomics and genetic counseling, substance use disorders and opioid response, and maternal and child health. The Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Graduate Studies, and the newer School of Applied Computational Sciences anchor research capacity in genomics, computational biology, and health disparities. Meharry has established collaborative partnerships with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Diaspora Human Genomics Institute, positioning itself as a bridge institution linking HBCU research capacity to national biomedical research infrastructure. Federal grant programs support both research (NIH intramural and training grants, NSF STEM education and research infrastructure) and workforce development (HRSA health professions training, SAMHSA addiction treatment and recovery support services).