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VCCBH Logo a graphic of a heart and brain merged

The Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health (VCCBH) is an NIH funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) that provides a platform to build sustainable research programs built on the exceptional potential of early career faculty.  We are studying the vital health problems facing society: cardiovascular disease, stroke and cognitive impairment.


Co-Director Corner

We are just beginning our fifth year of NIH funding with great momentum. As summer takes hold in Vermont, the call is out for funding our $180,000 Fire Grant Awards! Our funded early career faculty are publishing in major journals like American Journal of Kidney Disease, Circulation ResearchJCI, Science Reports, and Journal of Physical Chemistry on topics ranging from cerebral blood flow to determining amyloid fibril structures using experimental constraints from Raman spectroscopy.  We have expanded our Research Cores to include new state-of-the-art instrumentation, which will provide VCCBH researchers access to improved deep-brain imaging in live animals and multiplex protein biomarker measurements in human and mouse models of human disease! We are currently lining up speakers slated for our Monthly Conference and Journal Club to begin September 2025. Our Annual Symposium will be held June 12-13, 2025. We hope to see you there!

-Mary & Mark


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Upcoming Events

VCCBH Conferences

Friday, November 15, 2024
Presenter: Mary Cushman, MD, MSc

Friday, December 13, 2024
Presenter: Michael Previs, Ph.D.

VCCBH Journal Club

Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Presenter: Jessica Badlam, Ph.D.

2025 VCCBH Symposium

June 12-13, 2025


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Save the dates!
Annual VCCBH Symposium June 12th & 13th, 2025

Registration: Upcoming
Final schedule: Pending


Recent News 

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.

Experts in Cardiovascular and Neurological Health Convene at UVM

June 18, 2024

Scientists at Larner College of Medicine exploring the intricate heart-brain connection showcased their findings at the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health (VCCBH) symposium at UVM’s Davis Center.

UVMCC Cancer Population Science Announces Pilot Award Grantees

May 28, 2024 by Katelyn Queen, PhD

The Cancer Population Science research program at the University of Vermont Cancer Center recently announced the winners of its pilot awards. The pilot awards are a unique philanthropy-funded mechanisms to support members conducting population-based research. 

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.

 

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