Cardiovascular Center

Pioneering Research Programs

The Medical College of Wisconsin Cardiovascular Center is a multidisciplinary research institution focusing on the mechanisms of disease related to the heart, lung and blood vessels.

Within the Center, researchers use state-of-the-art techniques to learn the causes of cardiovascular disease at the cellular, molecular and genetic levels. What they learn is translated into patient care in our affiliated hospitals.

For example, Center investigators are defining basic mechanisms through which blood vessels grow into the heart and brain. Clinical research then takes this basic data and uses it:

• To develop drugs and therapies to enhance this growth in the heart and brain of patients with heart and cerebral vascular pathologies.
• To treat problems such as heart failure, stroke and Alzheimer's disease.

The Cardiovascular Center is internationally recognized

Established in 1992, the Cardiovascular Center's talented scientists have achieved significant accomplishments, including the identification of:

• Processes that induce the growth of additional blood vessels in the heart.
   
• Regulators of pulmonary, vascular and airway elasticity related to asthma and hypertension.
   
• Cell mediators that regulate circulation.
   
• A new role for astrocytes, large cells in the nervous tissue. The Center showed that these cells are responsible for managing blood flow to neural activity in the brain. We now know that diseases like Alzheimer's result from a lack of normal blood flow to neurons. This research will give way to new therapies for stroke, Alzheimer's disease and other cerebral/vascular diseases.
   
• How blood sugar plays an important role in determining how much damage a heart attack will cause.
   
• New genes associated with high blood pressure and heart disease in African-Americans.
   
• Women who exercise to the point that they develop amenorrhea (no longer have menstrual periods) run the risk of developing osteoporosis and cardiovascular problems.