Overview

Cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in North America. In recent years, major advances have been made in genetics, developmental biology, molecular pharmacology, immunology, engineering, computer modeling, imaging, and clinical study design. These have improved understanding and diagnosis and have led to novel Therapies in cardiovascular and pulmonary disorders.

However there is a need for greater integration of educational and research efforts in cardiovascular biology, improved transfer of knowledge between the various disciplines that constitute this research field, and accelerated application of the basic information to clinical practice. For example, new approaches to computer-based engineering have redesigned surgical approaches and pharmacogenomics is providing new insight into individualization of therapy. Thus a broad range of scientific and clinical disciplines relate directly to the study of CVP medicine in addition to cardiology, respirology and surgery and include endocrinology-metabolism, hematology, nephrology, immunology, and infection, and more broadly, epidemiology and clinical trials design, cell and molecular biology, developmental and stem cell biology, tissue and mechanical engineering, physics and computer modeling, genetics/genomics, physiology and molecular pharmacology.

This Application Area is designed to address the educational needs in this area, and by providing training to medical students in scientific investigations. It is expected that our students will have a broad understanding of CVP Medicine and Biology and who will be able to apply cutting edge technology to clinically relevant questions in this discipline.

CVP is aligned with the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.