Congrats to Caitlin Bell, MD for receiving the 2023 Young Author Achievement Award for her manuscript "Risk of Cancer After Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Disease". Dr. Bell will be awarded at the  2024 American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions in Atlanta, GA.

Congrats to Sabina Sorondo, MD for receiving the 2024 VESS Resident Research Award from the Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Society for her project entitled “Assessing Soluble Guanylate Cyclase Stimulators in PAD”.

Huge congratulations to Shaunak Adkar for being selected as a finalist for the Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine (GPM) Young Investigator Award competition!

Congrats to Nicolas Lopez for receiving the 2023 Most Inspirational Player Award from the Stanford Men’s Baseball Team after their third consecutive trip to the College World Series.

Leeper Lab collaborator Martin Schneider, MD/PhD received the 2023 Vevo Research award for the research publication on "Combined near infrared photoacoustic imaging and ultrasound detects vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque"

Link to Publication

Link to Award

Great Job Leeper Lab members Ricky Baylis and Hua Gao as co-first authors on the iScience publication of their research studying the overlapping pathophysiologic themes between cancer and cardiovascular disease.

"Gene expression data provides a glimpse into the behavior of a tissue and has been a powerful method to determine how disease states differ from tissue homeostasis. 

The team integrated large human datasets containing gene expression data from tumors and vascular plaques to determine the commonalities. This revealed many pathways that had been hypothesized and many novel connections. The data was exploited to predict compounds that have already been developed which are predicted to target the mutually detrimental pathways. The hope is that this provides an early view at a new frontier for the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease, where mutual benefit is the aim of new therapeutics.

Link to Publication

Dr. Eri Fukaya, clinical associate professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery and a Vascular Medicine specialist, was chosen to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Society of Vascular Medicine (SVM) at the Annual Business Meeting in Washington DC on September 9, 2023.

Fun at Top Golf as send off to Shar as she returns to the University of Michigan and to celebrate Elsie’s departure for UCSD!

Congratulations to Dr. Gayatri Suresh Kumar for completing her Ansell Vascular Medicine fellowship.  It has been an honor to train Dr. Suresh Kumar this past year and we look forward to many great things to come. 

Lingfeng Lio, PhD was awareded a CVI Travel Award to present his abstract titled, Identifying novel drug candidates to improve efferocytosis in atherosclerosis, at the AHA Vascular Discovery 2023. 

Watch Sharika Bamezai talk about her research on the safety and efficacy of using pro-efferocytic nanoparticles as a possible treatment for atherosclerosis in an interview at the AHA Vascular Discovery 2023. 

Congratulations to Caitlin Bell, MD on being selected as a Finalist for the Emerging Scientst Award for Women at the Vascular Discovery: from Genes to Medicine at the 2023 Scientific Sessions. 

Watch Nick Leeper, MD interview Jesse Williams, PhD at the Vascular Discovery 2023.  Dr. Williams won the Irvine H. Page Junior Faculty Research Award Competition for his work on "Foamy Microphages Rely of Trem2 For Survivial During Atherosclerosis". 

Congratulations to Ryan Choi, Stanford Medical Student, on receving Med Scholar funding for his project on the role of TET2 binding on CD47 expression and development of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential associated cardiovascular disease.  

Congratulations to Dr. Ross on being elected as a Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA).  This fellowship recognizes and awards premium professional members for excellence, innovative and sustained contributions in the areas of scholarship, practice, education, and volunteer service within the AHA/ASA.  

The Leeper Lab celebrated Caitlin Bell's babyshower with fun day of bowling. 

Sharika Bamezai received the SVS Foundation Vascular Research Initiatives Conference (VRIC) Trainee Award for her abstract “Safety And Efficacy Of Pro-efferocytic Nanoparticles To Treat Atherosclerosis In A Porcine Model”.  Her abstract was one of the top-scoring for the VRIC program.

Dr. Fukaya was awarded the 2023 AVF-BSCI Translational Research Grant from the American Venous Forum for the project titled “Elucidating the Pathogenesis of Varicose Veins Using Stem Cells” at the annual meeting on 2/25/2023.

Congratulations to Derek Klarin, MD on being awarded the ASCI/Young Physician-Scientist Award 2023. 

Dr. Klarin hopes to use this award to enhance the translational aspects of his research.  His research focuses on risk factors for peripheral artery disease, the benefits of ultrasound screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms, and the impact of genetic variations on cardiovascular disease.
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Congratulations to Gayatri Suresh Kumar on graduating from the Vascular Medicine fellowship.  It has been an honor to train Dr. Suresh Kumar this past year and we look forward to many great things to come.