American Heart Association Career Development Award
JENNIFER ROMANOWICZ , MD
Cardiac imaging
In April 2023 , Dr . Romanowicz received the American Heart Association Career Development Award in the amount of $ 231,000 over three years . This award supports highly promising healthcare and academic professionals in exploring innovative questions or pilot studies that will support their future success as a research scientist . Dr . Romanowicz ’ s project , “ Identifying Novel Imaging and Serum Biomarkers of Fontan Failure : A Metabolic Approach ,” leverages cardiac MRI and metabolomics to dive deeper into SVHD . Her mentors , Jesse Davidson , MD , and Alex Barker , PhD , are also managing larger studies of their own .
As of August 2023 , Dr . Romanowicz began enrolling 25 SVHD patients to provide blood for metabolomics and undergo various MRI sequences . She will validate the first noninvasive measure of organspecific oxygen metabolism in a SVHD population , which will enhance mechanistic understanding of Fontan pathophysiology and can be put to immediate use clinically . She will also leverage this novel MRI test to identify serum metabolite biomarkers for Fontan failure which may be of predictive value .
K23 Grant
BENJAMIN FRANK , MD
Pulmonary hypertension and cardiac imaging
Dr . Frank was awarded a K23 grant in January 2023 by the NIH for $ 860,464 over five years . The title of Dr . Frank ’ s work is “ Pulmonary Vascular Development in Single Ventricle Heart Disease : A Longitudinal Biomarker Approach .” Dr . Frank credits his mentors on the project , Jesse Davidson , MD , Kika Sucharov , PhD , Alex Barker , PhD , Steve Abman , MD , and Michael DiMaria , MD .
In 2023 , Dr . Frank ’ s team finished recruiting the stage 3 portion of the longitudinal cohort . They hope to translate these findings to intervention trials specifically targeting pathways identified to be dysregulated in the coming years .
2023 Annual Report
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