Health Sciences Center Research

Signature Research Programs

Signature Program in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease

The Signature Program in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease includes basic, clinical, and translational research, as well as population based outcomes research and community outreach activities.

The MISSION of this program is to support and enhance the activities of investigators at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center who are pursuing important, clinically relevant research questions focusing on Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease. This program aims to enhance the collaborative inter-disciplinary scientific interactions within the institution, to increase the level of junior faculty mentorship and support and to promote the development of new areas of research strength.

Programmatic Goals

• To establish an electronic database of cardiovascular and metabolic disease investigators at the University of New Mexico which will serve as an information resource for members within and outside of the program.
• To support new and emerging areas of research related to cardiovascular and metabolic disease through the establishment of a pilot project grants program.
• To facilitate communication and the exchange of information and ideas between investigators in the program through the establishment of a monthly cardiovascular and metabolic disease research series.
• To provide administrative support for obtaining increased extramural funding for new multidisciplinary research and to establish relationships with the community-at-large in an effort to increase support for ongoing program activities.

Key Areas of Research Focus

This program is structured to include basic science research, clinical/translational research and population/outcomes research and community outreach activities.

Cardiovascular Disease:

I. Vascular Remodeling and Altered Vascular Reactivity in conditions such as Hypertension, Sleep apnea and other hypoxic disorders, Diabetes, Aging, Heart Disease, Chronic kidney disease and Stroke.

II. Improving the diagnosis and treatment of vascular alterations in Cerebrovascular, Cardiac and Chronic kidney disease.

III. Population/Outcomes Research and Community Outreach studies focused on vascular disease surveillance, intervention and education, the prevention of obesity, the promotion of Healthy lifestyles, nutrition and physical activity and tobacco use prevention.

Metabolic Disease:

I. Clinical/Translational studies focusing on diabetes diagnosis, management and treatment.

II. The mechanisms and treatment of diabetic complications including retinopathy, nephropathy, peripheral vascular disease, heart disease and stroke.

III. The mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of chronic kidney diseases including the role of inflammation and cellular stress.

IV. Basic science investigations of lipoprotein catabolism and adipocyte differentiation.

V. Population/Outcomes Research and Community Outreach studies focused on diabetes surveillance, intervention and education, the prevention of obesity and the promotion of healthy lifestyles: nutrition and physical activity.

Program Highlights

The various components of the program are supported by numerous grants and contracts from a variety of sources including the NIH, CDC, EPA, American Heart Assn., American Diabetes Assn, and various pharmaceutical companies. Many of these grants are interdisciplinary and involve numerous faculty members from diverse departments and divisions within and outside of the Health Sciences Center.

The General Clinical Research Center and the Clinical Trials Center (CTC) is heavily used and supports many of the clinical/translational studies carried out by investigators in this program.

The Prevention Research Center is a long standing center at UNM with extensive outside support from NIH, CDC, USDA and other sources for conducting community-based intervention trials, surveillance and translational research addressing the prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Education and training includes community and university-based activities.

The training activities of the basic science component of the program in Cardiovascular Disease are supported by a Cardiovascular Biology training grant in it’s 14th consecutive year of funding and includes 19 faculty mentors from the School of Medicine, College of Pharmacy and The Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute.

Program Steering Committee

Nancy Kanagy: Department of Cell Biology and Physiology

Kathleen Colleran: Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology

Vallabh Shah: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

Joe Anderson: Departments of Pharmacy Practice and Internal Medicine

Matthew Campen: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences