The Cardiovascular Research Foundation has more than 30 separate research studies underway. Some involve medication; some focus on intervention; others are exploring innovation. Each and every one has the potential to be a game changer.

Just to give you a small sense of what our physician researchers are exploring, these studies range from:

• New catheters, equipment, medications and treatments to treat cardiac arrhythmia – exciting things like pacemakers without leads, access to the most advanced equipment, diagnosis and treatment- advances Dr. Gang will mention.
• We are among the first in the world to have personalized EKG devices – the Alivecor device, a paradigm-shifting device.
• We are exploring new ways to diagnose the need for stents or bypass without an invasive approach. We can now measure blood flow from the coronary CT scan and we were first to do so.
• We were first to show that dangerous soft plaque could be seen in patients as early as 20 years of age as we are among the first to show we can reduce that plaque with treatment.
• Our investigators are leading scientist learning how to grow new heart muscle with stem cells and use dissolvable stents and new ways of measuring blood flow in the cath lab so we can do a better job deciding who gets medicine, stents or bypass.
• And the patients of the Foundation are always among the first to be offered the chance at medications that others have to wait years for, as example the new injectable treatments for coronary disease that reduce events such as heart attack and stroke.

This is serious stuff, and this is just the tip of the iceberg to remind us all of the potential of research to help develop new and advanced methodologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease.