Priming the Pump
BY DAVID LEVIN
An NIH-funded collaboration is kick-starting research on the No. 1 killer of humans
Across the city of Providence, an unlikely team of researchers is emerging. A developmental biologist with row upon row of tiny fish tanks in her lab. A geneticist who seeks to understand the building blocks of human life, and by extension, human disease. A cardiologist who spends hours poring over ultrasounds, looking for clues to cure his patients.
These doctors and scientists are just a few of the dozen researchers involved in Brown’s CardioPulmonary Vascular Biology Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, or CPVB COBRE for short. It’s a mouthful of a name, but one that’s fitting for its ambitious mission: to both study the root cause of diseases that affect the heart and lungs, and to find new cures.
That’s a tall order. Cardiopulmonary diseases ranging from asthma to arteriosclerosis remain the leading cause of death for American patients. They develop in a wide variety of ways, and have an equally broad range of treatments. But they often have a common connection: many cardiopulmonary diseases stem not just from problems in the heart or lungs, but in the blood vessels that support them. That’s where this group of researchers is focusing.
Providence VA Medical Center
