This training program offers pre-doctoral trainees a breadth of exposure and a depth of expertise to acquire the essential aptitudes and tools to thrive in an aggressive cardiovascular research environment. Our specific goals are to:(a) provide rigorous state-of-the-art education in basic sciences of the cardiovascular system;(b) provide training in ethical conduct of research;(c) facilitate translational science by providing our trainees with the requisite tools and experience to compete in this arena;and (d) create future """"""""citizens of science"""""""" by fostering an environment that promotes advocacy of research with highest ethical standards. We propose to train 5 pre-doctoral fellows and 4 Summer Minority Scholars. Our training faculty, composed of 30 scientists, are all extramurally funded with laboratories well suited to train young scientists, and with excellent training records. The highly collaborative training faculty will implement a structured program covering the areas of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, arrhythmogenesis, central nervous control of cardiovascular function and vascular biology with a focus on mechanisms of atherosclerosis, abdominal aortic aneurysms, and thrombosis. This breadth of cardiovascular research opportunities for fellows is supported and enhanced by strong links to the Cardiovascular Research Center and the Gill Heart Institute. A multidisciplinary training faculty represent the combined resources of 11 academic departments in 3 Colleges and 3 Centers, providing both faculty and students a rich environment within which to work and interact, and opportunities for translational research. The curriculum exposes students to essential knowledge ranging from molecules to the integrated physiology of the whole organism with numerous opportunities for in-depth study of focused areas of cardiovascular function. An important feature of our program is the development of new vehicles to train fellows in techniques of translational research. Moreover, our successful minority recruitment program will continue to promote diversity within our training program. Finally, the University of Kentucky strategic plan targets the cardiovascular sciences for focused development, optimizing the environment for the training of superbly-equipped young scientists.
The ultimate basis for this training program is the continuing dearth of well-trained investigators in the cardiovascular sciences relative to the needs of American society for improved cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and treatment. Research by well-trained scientists and clinicians, such as we will train, shows continued promise for improvement of the cardiovascular health of Americans.
| Wehner, Gregory J; Jing, Linyuan; Haggerty, Christopher M et al. (2018) Comparison of left ventricular strains and torsion derived from feature tracking and DENSE CMR. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 20:63 |
| Parker, Matthew W; Vander Kooi, Craig W (2017) Plate-Based Assay for Measuring Direct Semaphorin-Neuropilin Interactions. Methods Mol Biol 1493:73-87 |
| Dong, Anping; Mueller, Paul; Yang, Fanmuyi et al. (2017) Direct thrombin inhibition with dabigatran attenuates pressure overload-induced cardiac fibrosis and dysfunction in mice. Thromb Res 159:58-64 |
| Levitan, Bryana M; Manning, Janet R; Withers, Catherine N et al. (2016) Rad-deletion Phenocopies Tonic Sympathetic Stimulation of the Heart. J Cardiovasc Transl Res 9:432-444 |
| Parker, Matthew W; Linkugel, Andrew D; Goel, Hira Lal et al. (2015) Structural basis for VEGF-C binding to neuropilin-2 and sequestration by a soluble splice form. Structure 23:677-87 |
| Mueller, Paul; Ye, Shaojing; Morris, Andrew et al. (2015) Lysophospholipid mediators in the vasculature. Exp Cell Res 333:190-4 |
| Wehner, Gregory J; Suever, Jonathan D; Haggerty, Christopher M et al. (2015) Validation of in vivo 2D displacements from spiral cine DENSE at 3T. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 17:5 |
| Wehner, Gregory J; Grabau, Jonathan D; Suever, Jonathan D et al. (2015) 2D cine DENSE with low encoding frequencies accurately quantifies cardiac mechanics with improved image characteristics. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 17:93 |
| Manning, Janet R; Withers, Catherine N; Levitan, Bryana et al. (2015) Loss of Rad-GTPase produces a novel adaptive cardiac phenotype resistant to systolic decline with aging. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 309:H1336-45 |
| Parker, Matthew W; Vander Kooi, Craig W (2014) Microplate-based screening for small molecule inhibitors of neuropilin-2/vascular endothelial growth factor-C interactions. Anal Biochem 453:4-6 |
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