VCCBH News

2022 Pilot Grant Award Recipients

December 6, 2022 by Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health

These awards, supported wholly by funds from UVM entities, provide $200,000 over 2 years to fund meritorious research from early career faculty. We are very grateful to Deans from the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences, Arts & Sciences, Engineering & Mathematical Sciences, and the Graduate College, as well as the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont, for their support of this program. In addition, we would like to acknowledge matching fund support from the Departments of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Medicine.

These awards, supported wholly by funds from UVM entities, provide $200,000 over 2 years to fund meritorious research from early career faculty. We are very grateful to Deans from the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences, Arts & Sciences, Engineering & Mathematical Sciences, and the Graduate College, as well as the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont, for their support of this program. In addition, we would like to acknowledge matching fund support from the Departments of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Medicine.
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Mimicking Exercise Intolerance in Human Cardiac Slice Preparations

Dr Matthew Caporizzo is a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and is a Pipeline Investigator in our Center. His work focuses on the molecular mechanisms that stiffen the failing heart and developing a program to test new therapies that reverse pathological stiffening of the heart.

Exertional intolerance is a common early feature of heart disease caused by stiffening of the heart. Developing therapies to soften the failing heart has been hindered by a lack of experimental techniques capable of measuring exertional capacity in isolated cardiac tissue.  The aim of this proposal is to develop the first-of-its-kind working cardiac tissue preparation to assess the role of stiffness on exertional tolerance. Having recently identified microtubule stabilization as a source of stiffness in the failing heart, the Caporizzo lab will leverage this methodology to determine the potential of microtubule-based therapies to improve cardiac performance in an established rat model of heart failure.  To determine the translational potential of microtubule destabilization therapies to the clinic, the Caporizzo Lab will adapt their platform accordingly to assess exertional tolerance in cardiac biopsy samples. This will enable identification of patient pools most-likely to benefit from microtubule destabilization therapies. If successful, our work will provide new pharmaceutical targets and guidance for novel microtubule-based therapy trials currently under development for the treatment of heart disease.

Evaluating Cardiovascular Care Delivery in Cancer Patients and Its Complications

Dr Mansour Gergi is a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division and is a Pipeline Investigator in our Center. His work focuses on balancing risks for bleeding and clot formation in cancer patients with cardiovascular disease.

There is a significant clinical knowledge gap on how to balance the risk of bleeding in people with cancer that are at risk for developing blood clots or thrombi. People with cardiovascular disease (CVD) are at greater risk for developing thrombi. The objective of my research is to study how cancer diagnoses affect care for patients under treatment for CVD with antithrombotics. Antithrombotics are drugs that reduce the formation of thrombi in the cardiovascular system. A comparison of antithrombotic therapy outcomes for CVD patients with and without Cancer will be conducted to determine if those with Cancer are at greater risk for bleeding and are treated appropriately to minimize this risk. The goal of this work is to identify cancer-specific risk factors for bleeding in this patient population. These factors will allow clinicians to better assess risks versus benefits when developing a treatment plan for patients with Cancer and CVD.

Recent Stories and Publications Featuring VCCBH Members

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted October 23, 2024

In a recent paper published in Nature Communications titled “Endothelial Piezo1 Channel Mediates Mechano-Feedback Control of Brain Blood Flow,” Osama Harraz, Ph.D., Bloomfield Early Career Professor in Cardiovascular Research and assistant professor of pharmacology at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, and his team of researchers from American and European institutions reveal that Piezo1, a lesser-understood protein, acts as a “brake” system, helping blood flow return to normal after neural activity.

The association of leptin and incident hypertension in the reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke (REGARDS) cohort

Posted October 23, 2024

Leptin is an adipokine associated with obesity and with hypertension in animal models. Whether leptin is associated with hypertension independent of obesity is unclear. Relative to White adults, Black adults have higher circulating leptin concentration.

Assessing prenatal and early childhood social and environmental determinants of health in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study (HBCD)

Posted October 23, 2024

The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood.

Health Watch: UVM researchers unlock secrets of brain blood flow in cognitive health

Posted October 16, 2024

Osama Harraz, Ph.D and his team of researchers at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine have made a breakthrough that could help in the effort to better understand the causes of dementia and how to stop it.

UVM at the Forefront of Stroke and Brain Health Research

Posted October 14, 2024

REGARDS Study Grant Renewed: UVM’s Continued Contributions to Research on Stroke Disparities by Race and Geography. Investigators at the Larner College of Medicine are receiving a $10.1 million multi-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue their 23-year program studying stroke and cognitive disorders in the United States.

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted October 2, 2024

Investigators at the Larner College of Medicine have received a $10.1 million multi-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue their work on the REGARDS project. The purpose of the project is to understand why those in some U.S. regions develop more strokes and Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia than others, and why Black people develop more strokes than white people.

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted August 21, 2024

Mark Nelson, Ph.D., chair and University Distinguished Professor of pharmacology, gave the Björn Folkow Lecture at the 15th Mechanisms of Vasodilation/Endothelium-Dependent Hyperpolarization (MOVD/EDH) 2024 conference July 2–5 at Magdalen College in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted July 31, 2024

A collaborative research team co-led by investigators David Jangraw, Ph.D., M.S., and Denise Peters, Ph.D., D.P.T., PT, has been awarded the 2024 Armin Grams Memorial Research Award by the Center on Aging. 

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted July 10, 2024

Two Larner-affiliated researchers won their respective poster competitions at the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health symposium held June 6–7 at the University of Vermont’s Davis Center.

Movement of the endoplasmic reticulum is driven by multiple classes of vesicles marked by Rab-GTPases

Posted May 15, 2024

John Salogiannis, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, and members of his lab team—Allison (Morrissey) Langley, lab technician and Ph.D. candidate in cellular, molecular, and biomedical sciences; Sarah Abeling-Wang, lab research technician; and Erinn Wagner, UVM undergraduate biology major—have their first preprint*: “Movement of the endoplasmic reticulum is driven by multiple classes of vesicles marked by Rab-GTPases.” The team’s research is supported by an NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA or R35) for early-stage investigators.

The University of Vermont Center on Aging Newsletter

Posted May 2024

Katharine Cheung, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., interim director of the UVM Center on Aging, associate director for research, and assistant professor of medicine, and her mentee, medical student Susanna Schuler ’26, presented their research findings at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine State of the Science meeting on March 23 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Larner College of Medicine Dean's Newsletter, Accolades and Accomplishments

Posted March 6, 2024

A study by a nationwide collaborative group, including Larner scientists Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., University of Vermont Distinguished Professor and co-director of the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health, Russell Tracy, Ph.D., University of Vermont Distinguished Professor and director of UVM’s Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry Research, Margaret Doyle Ph.D., associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and co-director of the Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry, and Rebekah Boyle, M.S., was recently published in Nature Communications.

 

UVM Scientist Wins Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Grant to Tackle Neurodegenerative Diseases

Larner Scientist Seeks to Advance Neurodegeneration Research

February 22, 2024

Larner College of Medicine scientist Osama Harraz, Ph.D., M.Sc., and his colleague from the University of Maryland (UMD), Thomas Longden, Ph.D., are recipients of a prestigious Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s (CZI) Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NCDN).