Department of Medicine
Cardiology Research
The Division of Cardiology and the Sarver Heart Center have a proven track record of improving patient care through discovery, innovation and a strong commitment to research.
Research Areas
The Sarver Heart Center Resuscitation Research Group is world-renowned for decades of research that have transformed how CPR is performed, leading to new guidelines that advocate chest-compression-only CPR. Chest-compression-only CPR doubles a person’s chance of survival from sudden cardiac arrest. Ongoing work is focused on better understanding the causes behind cardiac arrest and development of new treatments that maximize the chance of survival after cardiac arrest.
Research into heart failure runs the gamut from basic science to clinical and population science. Many of our scientists study the molecular mechanisms of heart failure, inherited and other heart muscle diseases. Clinical research projects focus on new drug and device treatments for heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, as well as projects aimed at better understanding how to personalize heart failure therapy and more effectively individualize treatments using genomic, proteomic and metabolomics approaches. Population health projects are focused on better understanding disparities in heart failure, including how the disease differs in women and men, the young, old and very old, and racial and ethnic minority populations.
Established in 2006, the Molecular Cardiovascular Research Program is a large, internationally recognized group of scientists from diverse disciplines. They work together in an open-lab atmosphere to better promote exchange of ideas, collaboration and translation, focusing on interdisciplinary approaches to cardiovascular diseases, including developmental, physiological and cellular, applying advances in molecular biology, genetics, bioengineering and biochemistry to treatments for clinical diseases of the heart.
The Division of Cardiology and the Sarver Heart Center have a long tradition of encouraging young researchers, as evidenced by the number of Investigator Award recipients who have gone on to productive and well-funded research careers. The wide variety of scientific opportunity available makes for a rich and individually tailored research experience for our trainees. Undergraduate students, graduate students, medical students, residents, clinical and postdoctoral fellows all find rich learning experiences.
We focus not only on teaching our trainees in research methods, but in providing them all of the skills necessary to compete in today’s scientific climate: training in writing grant proposals, collaborating with other investigators, understanding regulatory issues, working across disciplines, and managing a laboratory or research program. Through an alliance with the Eureka Institute in Translational Medicine, select trainees have the opportunity to participate in focused training on the practical aspects of translating basic findings to clinical treatments. In addition, several training grants allow learners to fund dedicated research time, gaining the skills necessary to compete in a rigorous scientific climate. Finally, research focused on collaboration across disciplines provides the opportunity to explore many different areas of cardiovascular research, and develop an individualized training plan for each learner.
Clinical Trials
In partnership with the Sarver Heart Center, we are exploring not only the newest potential treatments for heart disease, both with drugs and devices, but also are looking at better ways to identify or prevent heart disease. While some clinical research trials involve randomization to a study group, others use surveys or evaluate medical records to find new and better ways to help people. We often recruit healthy subjects, or controls, to better evaluate and compare results with those of non-healthy subjects.
Recommend against including the link to studies.medicine.arizona.edu, which contains very outdated information
Opportunities for Researchers
Medical researchers often have an abundance of questions, but face challenges when finding funding to search for answers. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the Sarver Heart Center Investigator Awards Program provides more than $100,000 in funding annually to students, trainees and faculty for early-stage, pilot and bridge funding. For decades, this program has provided a gateway between new ideas and the early data required for researchers to successfully compete for national grants.