From our Center

I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Vinicio A. de Jesus Perez, MD

Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez discusses the 4th International Symposium: From Precision Biology to Precision Medicine in Pulmonary Hypertension taking place Friday, May 18, 2018.

Stanford researchers, including Vera Moulton Wall Center Executive Director, Mark Krasnow, MD, PhD, map intricacies of lung cancer in one of their own

When James Spudich was diagnosed with lung cancer, researchers had a rare, and unexpected, opportunity to study healthy and diseased human tissue at an unprecedented level of detail.

It was around 3 p.m. on a Thursday last October when James Spudich and Suzanne Pfeffer poked their heads into the office of Mark Krasnow, on the fourth floor of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, interrupting a meeting he was having with a colleague.

“Can we talk to you for a minute?” Pfeffer said.

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Dr. Kristina Kudelko featured on 'Stars of Stanford Medicine'

Kristina Kudelko, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine, expected to return to New York after a fellowship in pulmonary hypertension, but she unexpectedly fell in love with Stanford and has called it home since 2008.

Why did you go into medicine?

I thought that I was going to do something in the humanities. I liked music but I wasn’t talented enough to have a career in it. I thought about journalism too. But I got swept up into intro to bio classes that I took just to fill requirements at Yale. I became really interested in biology, and thought maybe I would do marine biology.

In the end, a huge component was my brother. He’s a role model for me and a neurologist. It seemed like a good fit. I did a year of research at the National Institutes of Health, but realized I really liked the clinical side.

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Congratulations to Dr. Roham Zamanian, Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, and dedicated Wall Center clinicians, researchers and staff, for publishing in the Blue Journal (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, March 2018), as well as the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology (February, 2018). 

Dr. Zamanian and Dr. de Jesus Perez, et al, recently published “Drug Induced Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Primer for Clinicians and Scientists”, in the February issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology. However, the largest PH community impact is felt by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine paper, titled “Features and Outcomes of Methamphetamine-associated Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension”.   More Along with significant contributions from our Wall Center clinical and research team (contributing authors include : Hedlin, Greuenwald, Wilson, Segal, Jorden, Kudelko, Liu, His, Rupp, Sweatt, Tuder, Berry, Rabinovitch, Doyle, and Kawut), this new research has changed the established worldwide guidelines for PH, and was recently highlighted at the 6^th World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension in Nice, France. 

Additionally, Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Staff Physician for the Stanford Adult Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic, was honored with a visiting professorship at Brown Alpert Medical School (March, 2018), where he presented Grand Rounds and led a round table discussion on “Drug Induced Pulmonary Hypertension: A Primer for Clinicians and Scientists”.

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Stanford-Spain form Consortium for discovery of novel genes associated with risk of PAH

The main aim of this consortium is to perform WES analysis in PAH patients seen at Hospital La Paz in Madrid and Stanford hospital to identify novel gene variants potentially involved in PAH. Work by the consortium so far has led to the discovery of CRIPAK, a key protein responsible for regulation of pulmonary vascular repair. High risk variants have been found in a high significant percentage of PAH patients independently evaluated in each institution in compare to controls. Validation of CRIPAK at the de Jesus Perez Lab in Stanford has revealed that CRIPAK could contribute to PAH by reducing endothelial viability, promoting small vessel loss and accelerating vascular remodeling. Ongoing analysis of genetic data will likely continue to identify and validate gene modifiers that could serve as potential targets for development of novel therapies for PAH.

The Wall Center Participates at the Wellness Fair

The Wall Center participated in the 14^th annual Wellness Fair on March 22, 2018 at the Arrillaga Center for Sports and Recreation. With over 3500 people in attendance, the Wellness Fair is a celebration of wellness and healthy lifestyle choices. Both Wall Center faculty and staff were on-hand to answer questions about the center, pulmonary hypertension and to promote the 18th Race Against PH. 

Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Sweatt, recently awarded a 2017 American Thoracic Society Foundation/Pulmonary Hypertension Association Research Fellowship grant.

Dr. Andrew Sweatt, an Instructor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Stanford, was selected to receive an $80,000 American Thoracic Society (ATS) Foundation research grant.  The ATS Foundation released the list of 2017 grant award recipients in January, after its scientific advisory committee selected the top proposals submitted from around the country.  Dr. Sweatt’s project, which is titled “Deep Immune Phenotyping of Pulmonary Hypertension by Unsupervised Machine Learning”, will involve the use of computational tools to discover novel subsets of PH patients that have distinct peripheral blood gene and protein signatures

Dr. Mark Nicolls returns to the Vera Moulton Wall Center, following a visiting professorship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Stanford University Professor of Pulmonary Care and Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Mark Nicolls, completes a visiting professorship at Johns Hopkins University.  While teaching within the School of Medicine, Dr. Nicholls spoke on Leukotriene B4, regulatory T cells and the evolution of the LIBERTY Trial. 

Dr. Mark Nicolls is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, within the Wall Center at Stanford University School of Medicine.

The Wall Center congratulates Dr. Kristina Kudelko on her promotion to Clinical Associate Professor (June 2017) and participation in Health4TheWorld Lecture Series.

Clinical Associate Professor and Wall Center physician, Dr. Kristina Kudelko, was honored to be an international lecturer for the Health4TheWorld website, sponsored by Stanford University.  Dr. Kudelko provided expertise in a series lecture entitled, “An Introduction to Pulmonary Hypertension” on December 8, 2017.

Awarded two NIH Research Project Grants (R01s), Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez paves the way for new pulmonary research and long-term studies into cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, Co-Director of the Stanford Translational Investigator Program (TIP) and Staff Physician of the Stanford Adult Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic of the Vera Moulton Wall Center, will take on the role of Principal Investigator (PI) in both NIH Research Project Grants. 

In the first 5-year grant (9/2017-8/2022), his team will examine the role of Wnt7a in orchestrating cardiopulmonary angiogenesis in health and disease.  In the second 5-year Research Project Grant (12/2017-11/2022), Dr. Perez’ research will focus on master regulator Wnt5a, and its effect on endothelial-pericyte interactions in pulmonary circulation.

Assistant Professor Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, also serves as the Chair Elect of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Pulmonary Circulatory Assembly, and the 2018 Chair of the Pulmonary Heart Association (PHA) Scientific Sessions.

Dr. Rachel Hopper joins as new faculty. Clinical Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Cardiology

Vera Moulton Wall Center Faculty Member Marlene Rabinovitch, MD has been named the AHA Distinguished Scientist Lecturer for the 2017 Annual AHA Meeting to be held this November in Anaheim.

This award reflects the high regard in which Dr. Rabinovitch and her outstanding body of work is held by academic physicians and physician-scientists in the US and abroad.

Dr. Rabinovitch will be recognized at the Annual AHA Scientific Sessions - Opening Session on November 12, 2017.

The Wall Center congratulates Dr. Rabinovitch on the well deserved honor.

Dr. Zamanian discusses breakthrough interventions in clinical trials and the process of enrolling in a 2-part podcast 

Dr. Zamanian is the Director of the Adult Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) Program at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr. Zamanian discusses breakthrough interventions in clinical trials and the process of enrolling in a 2-part podcast. He currently directs the Vera Moulton Wall Center clinical database and biobank and focuses his research on clinical characterization and impact of novel risk factors such as methamphetamine use, and biomarkers, such as insulin resistance, in pulmonary arterial hypertension.  Beyond industry clinical trials and registries, Dr. Zamanian has re-focused the research mission of the Stanford PH program by collaborating with basic science faculty and implementing several proof-of-concept and phase II clinical trials of novel therapeutics developed at Stanford University.  Dr. Zamanian also serves on phaware’s Medical Advisory Board.

Part 1:  Audio | Transcript
Part 2:  Audio | Transcript

Wall Center Faculty participated in Pulmonary Hypertension Association’s Preceptorship Program for Bay Area clinicians

Wall Center faculty Lorinda Chung (Immunology and Rheumatology), Kristina Kudelko (Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine), and Cyrus Kholdani (Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) served as co-moderators and faculty for the PHA Preceptorship Program:  A Collaborative Approach for Clinicians on the Front Line.

Presented by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, the program provided the latest information on PAH diagnosis and management and how to help build links among community PAH specialists, non-specialists, and staff, by creating new avenues for communication and supporting comprehensive, state-of-the-art care for our patients with PAH.

This free CME program took place on Friday, July 21 at the Garden Court Hotel, in Palo Alto.