How does maternal obesity before or during pregnancy affect the intrauterine environment and increase the risk of overweight/obesity in the offspring?
How does maternal dietary intake during pregnancy impact weight in the offspring?
What types of interventions are most effective for preventing excessive gestational weight gain among high risk groups?
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect and leading cause of defect-related infant mortality. With nearly 1 in 100 babies born annually with CHD, the needs of children and adults born with CHD are ongoing and costly. More focused research into CHD promotes human health and will result in a better quality of life, reduced premature death and lower healthcare costs.
Lack of data integration in the congenital heart disease research community is inhibiting low cost, research opportunities.
Abnormal epigenetic modification has been implicated in human disease. Epigenetic therapy using nonspecific inhibitors for histone acetylation and DNA methylation has been proved effective in some cancer. However, because histone acetylation and DNA methylation are essential biochemical modification of life process, globally suppression on these process would have severe adverse effect. Identification of specific mechanism ...more »
Much is still unknown about the lymphatic system. No medical specialist owns it. NHLBI and NCI could work together on understanding lymphatic disease in the direction of understanding how metastasis spreads disease. NHLBI can help by establishing a unit to organize research interest in such an important body system in health and disease.
A study section should be seated for clinical trials on rare disease. Members of this study section should consist only of individuals who have previously performed phase I and/or phase II trials, developed IND or IDE applications, or who have extensive experience in informatic or biometric support for clinical trials. My opinion is that seating individuals on these sections who have a laboratory career in cellular or ...more »
Often under recognized, the cardiac endothelial cells are highly abundant in the heart, and may have important roles in modulating cardiac function, besides simply serving as structural component of blood vessels. Evidences of ours and others have indicated an emerging role of cardiac endothelial cells signaling to cardiomyocytes to mediate important pathophysiological responses. Nonetheless, detailed mechanisms of ...more »
Large scale implementation of “change of culture” studies by which to revamp the approach to early removal of sedation and mechanical ventilation, coupled with monitoring of the brain and early mobility.
With the advent of HAART HIV-infected subjects are living longer. Lung infectious complications so common in the early stages of the HIV epidemic have been replaced by those associated with chronic inflammation (COPD, pulmonary hypertension, lung cancer). Furthermore, this chronic inflammation is likely contributing to premature vascular complications (i.e coronary disease) seen in this population. All of these complications ...more »
Controversies exist regarding the treatment of the thoracic aorta in those with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), in particular: 1) conflicting views regarding criteria for elective surgery, particularly aneurysm size 2) extent of thoracic aortic aneurysm repair.
Which therapy or combination of therapies to reduce injury from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) will be most efficacious for future clinical trials?
What are the risk factors and treatment options for pulmonary hypertension related to diastolic dysfunction in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)?
There is a need to create opportunities to explore clinically relevant basic and clinical research related to myocardial effects of thyroid hormone excess and deficiency, especially as it is related to atrial fibrillation.
Epinephrine is the primary drug that is used in resuscitation but observational studies and a few small RCT suggest that it improves short term but not long term outcomes. Factors such as timing, dose, quality fo CPR and post-resuscitation care all confound the issue. Large RCTs conducted at multiple centers are desperately needed to address this question.
Research in sickle cell disease (SCD) has mostly focused on preventing or treating acute medical events, such as vaso-occlusive pain, acute chest syndrome, and, in pediatric patients, acute strokes. Chronic SCD complications such as chronic kidney disease or pulmonary hypertension, develop over decades, thus are poor choices for clinical trial endpoints. There is a great need to develop surrogate endpoints that predict ...more »