Institutions that are less research intensive, which may characterize some of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions and tribal institutions with primarily minority faculty and/or student body, may need additional support for training researchers and for performing both hypothesis driven and student integrated research to provide an environment conducive with NIH efforts to enhance... more »

Most aspects of variation in sleep and circadian rhythm are heritable. Moreover, all common sleep disorders aggregate in families. The response to sleep loss is also a highly heritable trait. Identifying gene variants for these disorders will elaborate new molecular pathways that could be targets for future interventions.

Effective approaches are needed to halt the epidemic of atrial fibrillation (AF) and its associated morbidity.

Heart attacks and strokes cause substantial morbidity and mortality, while implementation of cholesterol and other CV prevention guidelines remain low. Proposed NCQA on-statin in the last year among those with DM was 46% in national field testing, and about 75% in Kaiser Permanente (KP). KP has had some success overcoming barriers to statin, aspirin, and blood pressure medicine adherence. If the nation as a whole is... more »

Three chelators are presently available in the US and much of the world: parenteral deferoxamine, and oral deferasirox, as well as oral deferiprone. Monotherapy is unsuccessful in a significant minority of patients, due to side effects or inadequate response at tolerable doses. Taking a page from enormously successful strategies for combination oral therapy in hypertension, led by NHLBI and others over the past four... more »

RASopathies is one of a group of syndromes that include heart, lung and blood issues, but these are not all the concerns. Recognizing that these organs are part of a functional network (called the human body), partnering with other Institutes could help expedite knowledge of these systems. Leveraging small pockets of funds through mechanisms such as R13 grants where the primary institution is not NHLBI is an inexpensive... more »

How do we eliminate disparities in cardiac arrest care?

What are the regional variations in cellular and molecular characteristics (from epigenetics to microbiome) in the lung, and what controls these variations?

Can we "reprogram" the immune system to improve outcomes of heart, lung, and hematopoietic cell transplants?

While NIAID is a major funder of immunology research, we are a major contributor to stem cell research. Our resources could be combined, where NIAID would support this approach for autoimmune diseases, and we would support work in tolerance for transplants.

If the NCI also wants to collaborate on co-stimulatory... more »

Major depression (MD) is common in patients with heart failure, and it is an independent risk marker for functional decline, hospitalization, and mortality. Two large trials have shown that it can be difficult to treat. SADHART-CHF, a double-blind, placebo-controlled RCT (n=469), found that sertraline was not efficacious for MD in HF. MOOD-HF (n=372) showed that escitalopram was not efficacious. Smaller trials of cognitive-behavioral... more »

How can the effectiveness of existing curative therapies be improved for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation?

Are T32s doing a sufficient job of promoting interdisciplinary and team science? Should we change the way these programs are structured?

Can better predictors of disease severity such as specific biomarkers and/or genetic polymorphisms be identified so as to help understand the course and progression of sickle cell disease in various patients?

At home sleep tests or personal monitors (PM) have been shown to effectively provide an adequate diagnosis of OSA with the proper pre-screening tests and evaluation. These methods can be adopted by hospitals and if used effectively can save money to the patients and healthcare facility. With the Affordable Healthcare Act the focus is on providing quality care for less money, but many hospitals are slow to adapt. Sleep... more »

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 »