What it takes to host a pediatric
HEART TISSUE BANK
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Theoretically, anyone could do what Shelley Miyamoto, MD, pediatric cardiologist at Children ' s Hospital Colorado, does – study pediatric heart failure through muscle bath research – but it seems that almost no one else is doing it.
At least, that’ s according to Dr. Miyamoto, who doesn’ t think her work is ingenious, but instead lauds the visionaries who had the foresight to build an infrastructure to study pediatric heart failure.
Part of that is what she calls the“ serendipity” of having the right people in the right place at the right time. Those right people include Mike Bristow, MD, a cardiologist at University of Colorado Hospital, who first brought the muscle bath technology to Denver 40 years ago. Based at the Anschutz Medical Campus, he shares his equipment with other researchers in close proximity, including Dr. Miyamoto at Children’ s Colorado( which is also on the Anschutz Medical Campus).
Those right people also include Dunbar Ivy, MD, Chief of Pediatric Cardiology, whom she credits as having the vision to invest in several special freezers to store the tissue, allow her protected time to keep the tissue bank active, build a pediatric heart transplant program that would eventually amass enough hearts to create a significant tissue bank, and build an on-call team that could collect heart transplant tissue any time of the day or night, any day of the week.
“ I’ ve been fortunate because Dr. Ivy gets it,” Dr. Miyamoto says.“ We can do both excellent clinical care and cutting-edge research because Dr. Ivy ' s leadership has made it happen.”
“ We can do both excellent clinical care and cutting-edge research because Dr. Ivy ' s leadership has made it happen.”
SHELLEY MIYAMOTO, MD
Director, Cardiomyopathy Program; Millisor Endowed Chair in Pediatric Heart Disease