Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute

Specialized Center of Research

The Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute of Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) was established in 1974 to foster advances in research, treatment, and education in the broad area of heart and vascular disease. The Institute provides a unified structure that combines and integrates the components of basic science, clinical investigation, medical education, patient care, health-policy planning, and community research.

Over the past half century, some of the Medical Center’s most distinguished research advances have been in the areas of hypertension, vascular disease, lipid metabolism, heart failure, and atherosclerosis.

In the past three decades, the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute has been singled out by the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung and Blood Institute as a Specialized Center of Research in Hypertension, and as a Specialized Center of Research in Ischemic Heart Disease. The Specialized Center designation indicates that the Institute serves as a site for important medical research in the national interest. In addition, it was recently designated a Center for Cardiovascular Proteomics through support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Affiliates & Institutions

WCVI News

Dr. Jiang and his group reported recently that neutrophil elastase (NE) regulates vascular endothelial cell permeability.

Dr. Jiang and his group reported recently that neutrophil elastase (NE), a protease secreted from neutrophils, regulates vascular endothelial cell permeability. NE cleaves and activates protease-activated receptor-2, leading to actomyosin cytoskeletal activation, cell junction molecule VE-cadherin degradation, and increased endothelial permeability. Inhibition and deletion of NE in mice protect obesogenic diet-induced vascular leakage and immune […]

Read more

Congratulations to Vijaya Kolachalama, PhD, for promotion to Associate Professor

Vijaya Kolachalama, PhD, BUSM, Medicine/Computational Biomedicine, is a founding member of BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences and affiliated with the department of computer science. Research interests of his group currently lie at the interface of machine vision, representation learning and domain generalization. His laboratory has spent a significant amount of time to develop […]

Read more

Congratulations to Francesca Seta, PhD, for promotion to Associate Professor!

Francesca Seta, PhD, BUSM, Medicine/Vascular Biology, focuses on the biology of vascular smooth muscle and its contribution to maladaptive vascular remodeling associated with arterial stiffness and aortic aneurysms/dissections, two vascular conditions with no current therapies. She has identified novel vascular smooth muscle-specific molecular mechanisms, which could be targeted therapeutically to prevent vascular diseases and established […]

Read more

Congratulations to Robert Eberhardt, MD for promotion to Clinical Professor!

  Robert Eberhardt, MD, BUSM, Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine and Surgery, directs the vascular medicine service and non-invasive vascular imaging laboratories at Boston Medical Center (BMC), positioned critically between medical and surgical service lines. He has served key roles on national credentialing and accrediting organizations involved in vascular medicine and vascular laboratory testing. His expertise is recognized […]

Read more