Research Mentoring and Training Opportunities

Dr. Baker's research aims to gain understanding of the mechanisms by which adaptation of the heart to chronic hypoxia increases resistance to subsequent ischemia. He is also involved in determining the role of radiation in cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Cinquegrani's research interests include interventional cardiology, closure of patent foramen ovale, coronary imaging with CT and relationship between renal disease and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Jurva's research interests include echocardiography and vascular endothelial function.

Dr. Kulinski’s focus is on preventive cardiology, particularly lifestyle behaviors such as diet and physical inactivity. Her research interests include determinants of cardiorespiratory fitness and sedentary behavior and physiology. Her research emphasizes the use of accelerometers to objectively measure the amount and intensity of physical activity. She is currently studying the association of exercise and ‘sitting too much’ on coronary artery calcium burden. Future research plans include evaluating the feasibility of interventions to reduce sitting time in sedentary populations, with the goal of reducing future cardiovascular risk.

Dr. LaDisa is involved in using computational fluid dynamics simulations to understand vascular physiology in atherosclerotic disease and congenital heart failure. He is developing innovative means of optimizing stent design.

Dr. Marks heads the Clinical Trials Program of the Cardiovascular Division. His research interests include interventional cardiology, percutaneous mitral repair, coronary CT imaging, and patent foramen ovale closure.

Dr. Miura is involved in research on calcium-activated potassium channel KCa3.1's role in atherogenesis and studying reactive oxygen species in endothelial dysfunction.

Dr. Rubenstein's research interests include arrhythmia prognostication and prevention, myocardial infarct scar imaging using MRI.

Dr. Warltier's projects include studying the pharmacology and pathophysiology of left ventricular systolic and diastolic function in the normal and failing heart (specifically interested in time course and left ventricular mechanical alterations during development of pacing-induced cardiomyopathy/ischemic cardiomyopathy/myocardial stunning), development of new therapeutic modalities for the treatment of coronary collateral circulation, development of impedance catheter hardware for instantaneous measurement of either left ventricular or right ventricular diastolic function and new pharmacological agents that can be used to prevent ischemia/infarction in the perioperative period (techniques include holter analysis of ST segment alterations before, during, and after surgery to quantify intensity of ischemia).

Dr. Widlansky's lab concentrates on assessing the mechanisms involved in vascular endothelial regulation in humans. His studies apply high resolution vascular ultrasound and forearm blood flow measurements to make in vivo assess the effects of mechanistic interventions on vascular endothelial function. His current studies concentrate on assessing the role of mitochondria in the endothelial dysfunction of Type II Diabetics. Dr. Widlansky also currently leads the Human Vascular Research Center at MCW and is involved in multiple collaborative studies involving the Departments of Pediatrics (Endocrinology and Cardiology) Orthopedics, Surgery, and Medicine (Endocrinology and Geriatrics). These collaborative efforts assess alterations in vascular endothelial function in relevant disease states.

Dr. Zhang is involved in research on coronary vascular physiology including role of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species and transient receptor potential vanilloid type 4 (TRPV4) channels in endothelial dysfunction.

Dr. Zhao is involved in developing novel imaging compounds to non-invasively detect cell death in myocardial infarction, transplant rejection, cardiomyopathy.