Awards

The American Heart Association has awarded seven new grants to Columbia University investigators totaling $1,426,000. These awards, each with a start date of July 1, 2008, include a $500,000 National Established Investigator Award to CVRI member, Jeanine D’Armiento, M.D., Ph.D., to study "Novel Mechanisms of MMP Induction in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells" and a Predoctoral Fellowship ($42,000) to David Malito, a graduate student in the laboratory of CVRI Vice Director Robert S. Kass, Ph.D., to study "Molecular Mechanisms of Arrhythmia Linked to the Cardiac Sodium Channel".

Thomas G. Diacovo, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics & pathology and director of neonatal and critical care research, division of neonatology, was granted $750,000 by NYSTAR (NY State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation). He will develop and test potential anticoagulant drugs and non-invasive imaging techniques to locate clots within the body, using genetically altered mice developed in his laboratory.

Ira Tabas, M.D., Ph.D., professor and vice-chairman of research in the Department of Medicine at Columbia's College of Physicians & Surgeons, Alan Tall, M.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Molecular Medicine, and Domenico Accili, M.D., professor of medicine and the co-director of research at CUMC's Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center have received a $10.8 million, five-year Program Project Grant (PPG) from the National Institutes of Health to investigate why people with type 2 diabetes are dangerously susceptible to heart disease, the leading cause of death for people suffering from diabetes. The investigators bring distinctly unique expertise in their respective disciplines and years of experience to bear on the problem of atherosclerosis and its effects on diabetes.

CUMC Press Release (Sept 17, 2007)

INVIVO Article (October/November 2007 Issue)