UK Sends Researchers to ATVB Conference
LEXINGTON, Ky, (April 19, 2012) — More than 50 University of Kentucky graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty are attending the American Heart Association Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB) conference April 18-20 in Chicago.
ATVB is an annual international conference for scientists and clinicians at every career level. The event brings together communities of investigators to present and learn about cross-disciplinary interests broadly related to cardiovascular diseases.
“This conference is a once per year event displaying mentoring and cross-department collaboration that occurs every day in many classrooms and laboratories on campus,” said Alan Daugherty, director of the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center at UK.
“The networking and collaborative discussion that comes from attendance will benefit students as they advance in their careers. The discussion among clinicians could lead to a new collaboration or idea that may one day be the next treatment," said Daugherty.
The event is especially important in the state of Kentucky due to the high mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases. The teaching, training, and research being conducted at UK is striving to impact this phenomenon.
“The ATVB conference is by far the most important conference on atherosclerosis, the key mechanism leading to myocardial infarction and stroke. The dominance of UK at this conference is evidence of the cutting-edge cardiovascular research performed at this institution” said Dennis Bruemmer, associate director of the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center. Bruemmer is actively investigating molecular mechanisms of atherosclerosis, post-angioplasty restenosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm formation.
Faculty, graduate students and postdocs attending ATVB are drawn from several departments across the university, including: physiology, biochemistry, the Graduate Center for Nutritional Sciences, the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center, internal medicine, pharmaceutical sciences and the Center for Biomedical Engineering.
“The work being done within UK to address this world-wide impairment of human functioning is remarkable,” said Daugherty. “The impact our campus is having on this human disease is exactly what is needed for the Commonwealth.”
MEDIA CONTACT: Allison Elliott, allison.elliott@uky.edu