Cardiovascular Innovation Institute to help combat heart failure
Rob Dowling, M.D., and Laman Gray Jr., M.D., have performed five AbioCor heart implants. Gray will serve as the institute's medical director.
In an era of nearly daily medical miracles, one cardiovascular disease is still on the rise in the United States. Each year more than 500,000 new heart failure cases are diagnosed, and 250,000 deaths are attributed to heart failure.
UofL, in partnership with Jewish Hospital and Kentucky's Office for the New Economy, is working to address the issue with the development of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute.
Approved Feb. 13 at a Board of Trustees meeting, the institute will build on the successes of Laman Gray Jr.'s work with replacement hearts and ventricular assist devices -- two state-of-the-art treatments for end-stage heart failure.
Gray and Rob Dowling, both M.D.s, have performed five AbioCor artificial heart implants at Jewish Hospital since 2001.
"The initial focus of the institute will be to integrate biosensors with cardiac devices," said Gray, who will serve as the institute's medical director. "If we can get sensors to regulate devices such as pacemakers or VADs to better respond to increased demand for blood flow -- for walking up steps, for example -- then we'll have vastly improved the quality of life for patients."
The institute will include an expanded large-animal research facility plus three or four floors of research, training and administrative space. The large-animal facility will be funded through $5 million from the Office for the New Economy, and the research and training space will be built with a $15 million investment from Jewish Hospital.
The entire facility will be equipped with the latest technology through two appropriations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secured by Sen. Mitch McConnell.
"The institute is the latest example of our commitment to leverage state dollars with federal and private funds," said UofL president James Ramsey, Ph.D. "This leveraging assures a higher and faster return on each entity's investment."
A governing board with representatives from UofL, Jewish Hospital and the Office for the New Economy will manage the institute, along with Gray and yet-to-be-recruited scientific and business directors.
Final plans for the institute will be completed during the third quarter of 2003, with the opening projected for 2006.
"Over the coming weeks, we'll be developing an architecture and construction plan, recruiting the scientific director, appointing the board and finalizing the corporate organization and governance, developing a master contracting and intellectual property strategy, and identifying potential corporate and research partners," said Joel Kaplan, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine.
