Eighteen Stanford University School of Medicine projects that had been stalled by budget shortfalls will receive $6.9 million in federal economic-stimulus funding, the School of Medicine announced Tuesday.

The projects cover a wide range of disciplines and research, from understanding the herpes virus to better imaging for stroke victims. The projects are the first at the medical school to receive support under the national stimulus plan, with additional grants expected down the road, officials said.

The money comes largely for projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had a roughly 10-percent budget shortage.

"This is a lifesaver," said Dr. Francis Blankenberg, associate professor of radiology and of pediatrics, whose department received $655,000 in stimulus funds. "It really stabilizes the lab."

Blankenberg and his colleagues are working on a new radiotherapy approach to targeting breast and colon tumors.

"In the old days, they probably would have funded it," he said, but the project remained temporarily sidelined by the stiff competition for limited NIH money. The money will pay for two postdoctoral scholars, as well as Blankenberg and another faculty member part-time.

Dr. Philip Pizzo, dean of the School of Medicine, said the stimulus funding is critical to the country's health-care reform effort because of the linkage between research and medical care.

"After six years of NIH funding that constantly lost its value against inflation -- with a profoundly negative impact on our nation's prized biomedical research enterprise -- the stimulus funding is helping to take research off life support and breathe new hope for work that we hope will ultimately improve the lives of adults and children," Pizzo said.

The stimulus funds will enable projects already in the pipeline to finally begin, while breathing new life into others already in process.

Eleven of the newly funded projects had been peer-reviewed and approved but hadn't received money from the NIH. Another six involved supplemental grants to existing projects.

Dr. Roland Bammer, an assistant professor of radiology, said his $790,000 grant under the program was a "big relief." He is improving radiological technology to detect early strokes, brain tumors and other brain abnormalities.

"This was the application that was dearest to my heart, but I had difficulty funding it," he said. "Ninety out of 100 grant proposals were rejected in the past. It was tough," he said of the NIH budget reductions.

The biggest grant funded under the stimulus program is a $1.6 million award to Dr. Amar Das, assistant professor of medicine and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for a project funded by the National Library of Medicine. His team is developing methods to allow scientists to understand disease patterns by sharing information from large databases.

Dr. Ann Arvin, the university's vice provost and dean of research, also received a $444,000 grant for a project on the herpes simplex virus, which causes cold sores.

More details on the funded projects can be found at med.stanford.edu.