UI gets $4 million for cardiovascular research

IOWA CITY - The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has granted the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine a five-year, $4 million Institutional National Research Service Award renewal.

Initiated in 1974 under the direction of Dr. Francois Abboud, the Edith King Pearson Chair in Cardiovascular Research and professor of internal medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics, the training grant is one of the longest continuously funded programs of its kind in the nation. The funding supports stipends and research expenses of young medical doctors and research scientists for two or three years of research training with the goal of preparing them for careers as leading cardiovascular researchers and/or physician/scientists.

The award is the seventh competitive renewal of the Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Research Fellowship to the UI Cardiovascular Research Center. It will extend the program's continuous NIH funding through its 41st year and bring total funding for this program to over $26 million.

Abboud, who also is director of the UI Cardiovascular Research Center, continues to direct the program and attributes its long-standing success to the dedication and foresight of UI faculty past and present.

“Without the vision of Dr. John W. Eckstein, who was dean of the College of Medicine in 1974, and the collaboration of the late Dr. Michael J. Brody, who was co-director of training, the inception of this grant would not have been possible,” Abboud said. “Today, we have outstanding co-directors that include Dr. Mark E. Anderson, currently head of the Department of Internal Medicine, and program director of the International Research Foundation Leducq Consortium; Dr. Donald Heistad, who is deputy director of the Cardiovascular Research Center and has served as co-director of the training grant for over 15 years; and Dr. Curt Sigmund, currently head of the Department of Pharmacology and director of the UI Center on the Functional Genomics of Hypertension. They provide the oversight of recruitment, of program evaluation and of graduate course requirements respectively.”

Since its inception, the program has provided opportunities for young researchers to be exposed to diverse research disciplines in the clinical and basic sciences. Over the past 36 years, more than 500 cardiovascular scientists and cardiologists have received research training through this program. According to Abboud, the majority of these trainees are now established scientists and cardiologists, who are leaders in cardiovascular research in academia or industry.