The Case Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) is home to investigators focused on translating fundamental discovery from the bench to pre-clinical models, first-in-human studies and data science approaches for integrating data streams in mice and men to support causal relationships between emerging risk factors and cardiometabolic disease. Major research areas include inflammation, metabolism, angiogenesis and the role of the environment in cardiometabolic diseases.
The diversity and collaborative interactions within the Institute and broader university community foster a multi and transdisciplinary approach to basic and translational research. We set ourselves apart from other programs by embracing a strong culture of developing and promoting the careers of young scientists and physician-scientists in clinical, translational and basic research.
The net result of these efforts has been:
- The establishment of premier research programs in basic/translational/and clinical research
- Recruitment of outstanding clinician-scientists and research scientists
- Robust funding streams including multiple K-grants, R01s, multiple foundation awards including from the American Heart Association and the Alzheimer’s Disease Foundation and a T32 Cardiovascular training grant.
Major Research Areas:
- Vascular Biology – Research efforts focus on the role of vascular and inflammatory cells in angiogenesis, injury and repair.
- Cardiac Myocyte Biology – Research efforts are focused on understanding fundamental mechanisms governing the development, progression and complications of cardiac hypertrophy and failure.
- Gene Regulation – Research efforts are directed towards understanding basic molecular mechanisms governing gene regulation with a focus on DNA-binding proteins and chromatin-modifying factors.
- Inflammation & Immunity – The main focus is on the role of innate immunity – especially the development, differentiation and activation of myeloid lineage cells and their impact on the development of atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, and insulin resistance syndromes.
- Arrhythmias – Using cardiac electrophysiological and pharmacological techniques, research efforts are focused on understanding mechanisms underlying the development of atrial flutter/fibrillation as well as novel pharmacologic and mechanical approaches to the treatment of this arrhythmia.
- Environmental Risk Factors and Cardiometabolic Risk – CVRI investigators have developed newer approaches to link external environmental risk factors as integrated exposomic risk (IER). These factors include geospatial features in the built and natural environments extracted using AI approaches, multi-pollutant exposures and finally poorly defined factors in the social environments including food environments, noise and social networks. Integration of IER with other traditional risk factors and precision health measures including radiomics and genomic data is allowing new insights and elucidating causal relationships between the environment and cardiometabolic risk.