Congratulations to Dr. William Sessa
William Sessa, Ph.D., Yale's Alfred Gilman Professor of
 Pharmacology, Professor of Medicine, Vice Chairman of Pharmacology and former NAVBO President is one of the first visionary scientists to receive the AHA Merit Award.
On June 10, 2016, the American Heart Association awarded its first Merit Awards to fund highly promising investigators who have the potential to move a field of science forward with creative approaches. The awards, each for $1 million doled out over five years, went to a researcher at Duke University School of Medicine and another at Yale University School of Medicine.
"Both investigators are being recognized for their visionary ideas," said Ivor Benjamin, M.D., chair of the AHA's research committee and director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Medical College of Wisconsin.
Rather than supporting specific research projects, the Merit Awards support scientists - those who propose novel approaches to major research challenges in cardiovascular disease and stroke that have the potential to produce an unusually high impact. The proposed research must reflect substantially different ideas from those already being pursued, according to the AHA.
In return, awardees serve as ambassadors for the nonprofit in an effort to further its mission.
Dr. Sessa wants to understand what triggers the beginning stages of coronary artery disease. "Although lipid lowering and lifestyle management have reduced the number of deaths from heart disease, coronary artery disease still dominates as the major cause of death in people with heart disease, so we haven't cured the disease yet," said Sessa, who directs Yale's vascular biology and therapeutics program. "Our research aims to explore the underpinnings of what initiates the accumulation of fat in blood vessels."
If successful, Benjamin said, "Sessa's research has the potential to bring new forms of treatment to market that prevent heart attacks and strokes."
For the full article, click here.
Meet our new members:
Joana Amado-Azevedo, VU University Medical Center
Siqi Gao, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center
Elizabeth Harrington, Brown Universty/Providence VAMC
Yi Jin, Karolinska Institutet
Boa Kim, University of Pennsylvania
Jingyao Qiu, Yale University
Md Sanaullah Sajib, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Melanie Uebelhoer, UCLA
Yinyu Wu, Yale University
Fatema Tuz Zahra, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
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