Society for Vascular Surgery

Maintaining and increasing the productivity of established investigators. Increase overall funding for R awards and their duration and reduce administrative burden.

Maintaining the pipeline of clinician scientists via early and mid-career awards. Promote the development of collaborative teams.

Breakdown silos to encourage team/interdisciplinary science, cross-institutional research teams.

Utilization of well characterized cohort studies and clinical trials to conduct ancillary scientific studies on pathophysiology, responses to treatment, and identify new ways to predict and treat disease. Restore the Ancillary Studies mechanism. Improved biobanks and data sharing platforms are needed. Facilitate public-private partnerships.

Provide resources and training to improve the ability of scientists to bridge the “translational gap”. Continue and expand the VITA program.

How can we better model human vascular disease in all its complexity?

­This is key to more effective translation of both diagnostics and therapeutics. Develop improved animal models of vascular diseases including PAD, aneurysm, venous diseases, to facilitate fundamental research and preclinical development.

Can we develop improved, clinically effective tissue engineered constructs for vascular disease?

Alignment of regulatory, healthcare, and research arms of the government is poor. There is a need to improve the design, quality and usefulness of data from regulatory studies to address major clinical questions and also to facilitate scientific inquiry. This is a barrier to evidence based medicine and improved treatments.

Pragmatic and adequately powered clinical trials are an ongoing challenge.

­Develop new tools to facilitate identification and recruitment of subjects, remote/wireless data collection, and functional measures.

How do we identify new and more effective approaches to reduce the burden of venous disease and venous ulceration?

What are the causative factors underlying the disparity in prevalence and progression of various vascular disorders (PAD, CVD, aneurysm) across populations?

What is the most effective approach to asymptomatic carotid artery disease to reduce the burden of stroke?

What is the optimal treatment of patients with PAD?

How to develop novel methods for predicting and monitoring atherosclerosis progression and vulnerable plaque including biomarkers and imaging?

How to develop effective medical therapies to reduce aneurysm progression - currently only surgical intervention is effective.