Illinois Medicine

cardiovascular research by Patrick Kampert W hat causes hearts to fail, and how can treatment be improved? Those very complex questions—the answers to which draw from sev- eral medical disciplines, not just cardiology—are being addressed with renewed focus and campus-wide involvement in the University of Il- linois' Center for Cardiovascular Research under new director Douglas Lewandowski, PhD. Center investigators recently earned a $12 million program project grant renewal from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health for collaborative work focused on the fundamental causes of heart failure. And, following a five-year period of temporary approval and an extensive evaluation process, the CCVR on April 12 earned certification as a permanent center within the State University System by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees and the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE). Lewandowski, a professor of physiology and biophysics who also directs the CCVR's Program in Integrative Cardiac Metabolism, says he is excited about how the center is connecting investigators from different departments to share their expertise—and laboratories. "Previously, investigators were working within intellectual or administrative silos," says Lewandowski. "This is truly an opportunity to bring together our scientists across departments. If you look at many of the top medical schools, there has been a shift toward the formation of centers dedicated to a common research problem. This is, in some ways, modernizing the infrastructure for how research is supported and performed, from basic science to clinical departments." Lewandowski has brought new faculty to the center, and he ex- pects there will be others. He asked Jason Yuan, MD, PhD, a University of Illinois newcomer and the principal investigator for the university's Institute for Personalized Respiratory Medicine, to play an integral role in the CCVR. Yuan, who has long studied pulmonary hypertension, and Samuel Dudley, MD, PhD, chief of cardiology and director of the Program in Cardiac Electrophysiology in the CCVR, have begun to compare notes on their respective research involving the ventricles of the heart. Yuan is excited about the possibilities of Lewandowski's vision, calling it a much more tangible and focused endeavor than some cen- ters he has seen in his career. "It's not just a virtual title—it's a real unit with real infrastructure," he says. The center's reputation also helped attract Terry Vanden Hoek, MD, to the College of Medicine to become professor and chair of the department of emergency medicine. He had previously served for 15 years at the University of Chicago. "The CCVR is a very important part of what I saw as attractive in coming here," Vanden Hoek says. "There are components of the CCVR dealing with arrhythmia and electrophysiology, muscle function and metabolism, and lung function that are relevant to what happens dur- ing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Vanden Hoek has been in conversations with Lewandowski, for instance, about the latter's research into changes in metabolism during conditions of cardiac arrest. Vanden Hoek also hopes to draw on the center's faculty as he investigates how therapeutic hypothermia can im- prove a patient's chances for survival after cardiac arrest. "We're looking at ways to pharmacologically create drugs that mimic the effects of cooling," he says. publications, and, perhaps even more importantly, the center has been responsible for a number of major breakthroughs in research. For ex- ample, center faculty have pioneered medical image-based methods to visualize the earliest changes in metabolism that occur in heart disease long before overall heart function becomes impaired, and they have developed drug treatments to restore heart function by normalizing patients' metabolisms. T Another area pioneered by CCVR investigators is proteomics, the analysis of changes to proteins in the heart that are critical in the diagnosis of cardiac disorders. Also, a study linking atrial fibrillation and oxidant stress holds promise for a new test for atrial fibrillation risk. Lastly, CCVR research also has found a number of mechanisms that can play a role in the reversal of inherited heart conditions, the biggest killer of young adults in the industrial world. The best part of these successes, Lewandowski says, is making a difference in patients' outcomes. "Our research is inherently transla- tional, from bench to bedside," he says. The importance of the work has long attracted funding above and beyond the $12 million grant from the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, for which Solaro serves as principal investigator, and which also employs two other project PIs from the university, Lewandowski and Brenda Russell, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics. Lewandowski and Solaro have each received a prestigious MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health for the work that occurs in their respective research programs. Both had been funded by the NIH and the American Heart Association for years before the center became a reality. "The University of Illinois goes very unsung but not unrecog- HE WORK OF THE CENTER BEGAN in 1995 under its founding director, R. John Solaro, PhD, head of the department of physiology and biophysics. In 2005, the CCVR officially formed and achieved temporary designation as a center from the IBHE. Becoming an official center is not easy to achieve, and for good reason, Solaro says. "There are all kinds of hoops you have to jump through because, if they're not successful, centers can be a financial drain on an institution," he says. CCVR researchers have authored more than 300 peer-reviewed I L L INOI S MEDICINE | 29 PHOTO: LLOYD DEGRANE

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