The University of Iowa, through the Francois M. Abboud Cardiovascular Research Center, has a rich history of excellence in cardiovascular research. Building on this strong foundation, we are very pleased to announce the establishment of the Center for Hypertension Research.
The goals of the new Center for Hypertension Research are to promote basic, clinical, and translational research specifically in hypertension, and to support the commercialization of newly developed technologies, treatments, and clinical tests. The new center will also help unite other university departments and centers that share a common interest in promoting hypertension research.
The new center will foster collaboration among the more than 40 faculty researchers who are conducting federally-funded hypertension research within four different colleges and the Iowa City VA. Countless others work in areas fundamental toward understanding the mechanisms causing or treating hypertension. All researchers with an interest in hypertension are invited to participate in the formation and work of this new inter-disciplinary center of excellence, thereby leveraging the diversity of the scientific and clinical expertise on campus.
Curt D. Sigmund, PhD, the Roy J. Carver Chair in Hypertension Research and Chair and Department Executive Officer of the Carver College of Medicine Department of Pharmacology, has been named the founding director of the center. Dr. Sigmund has over 25 years’ expertise in hypertension research, is the principal investigator of a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded program project grant on genetic and signaling mechanisms in the central regulation of blood pressure, and was the recipient of the Novartis Award in Hypertension Research from the American Heart Association Council for High Blood Pressure Research.
The new hypertension center, supported by generous funding from UI Health Care, will be announcing its first round of Pilot Project Grants later this summer. The grants, modeled on the Carver Collaborative and Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Pilot Project Grant programs, will be designed to foster new and existing collaborations linking basic and translational research into causes, mechanisms, and treatments for hypertension.
As it develops, the new hypertension center will develop core resources for all investigators. As one of its first major undertakings, the center is coordinating an application for an American Heart Association strategically focused hypertension research network that builds upon a strong collaboration between the Departments of Pharmacology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and others on the early detection and treatment for preeclampsia.
We look forward to this center’s future discoveries, aimed at achieving progress in preventing and curing hypertension