Basic Research

We take our work from Petri dishes all the way to patents and new treatment protocols.

Over 30 people conduct advanced research within the University of Cincinnati Heart, Lung & Vascular Institute, constantly driving for new discoveries across a number of different scientific study areas. The team’s discoveries have turned into roughly 30 patents and spurred the start up of five new companies involved with drug development. Since 2007, researchers have submitted 34 National Institutes of Health grant applications, 20 of which were R01s, and have co-authored 58 manuscripts. Current funding received for this research is approximately $25 million. Basic research within the UC Heart, Lung & Vascular Institute is broken into six main areas:

  • Signal transduction: Studies how mechanical and chemical responses modulate heart function or cause dysfunction.
  • Endothelial and vascular biology: Studies the cells in blood vessel walls and involves experiments to better understand normal and abnormal blood vessel function.
  • Genetics and gene regulation: Studies how certain genes alone or in combination with other genes and environmental factors contribute to cardiovascular disease.
  • Ion handling and contractility: Studies how calcium ions affect the heart’s pumping action.
  • Stem cells: This research studies the ways in which stem cells can restore impaired cardiac function damaged by heart attack or heart disease.
  • Image-guided cardiovascular therapeutics: Focuses on inventing novel methods to image the cardiovascular system and locally deliver pharmaceutical and molecular reagents to diagnose and treat heart disease.