AHA Center Grant Awarded to Dr. Chitalia and Dr. Ravid for Thrombosis ARC
THROMBOSIS ARC: Boston University School of Medicine in collaboration with Boston Medical Center receives over $2.8M from the American Heart Association to Address Disparities that Intersect Heart Disease, Cancer. The American Heart Association recently awarded a center grant to BU/BMC to examine the influence of health disparity in cardiovascular complications among cancer survivors. BUSM’s Center, titled, “Cancer-Associated Thromboembolism as Affected by Health Disparities (CAT-HD) will be directed by Prof Katya Ravid (BU) and co-directed by Vipul Chitalia (BMC). The center will coordinate two large research projects headed by an interdisciplinary team of principal investigators, including Katya Ravid, DSc and Vipul Chitalia, MD, PhD; and Nathaniel Fillmore, PhD and Michael Gaziano, MD, in collaboration with Drs. Mathew Kulke and Nana Addo-Tabiri. The training program will be co-led by Emelia Benjamin, MD, ScM and George Murphy, PhD. This study will specifically probe the molecular mechanisms of venous thromboembolism in cancer models in rodents and patients with cancer. The team will use multiple approaches to study how cancers are linked to the development of blood clots and what biological mechanisms cause the clots, as well as how health disparities, such as living conditions, diet and race influence blood clotting in people with cancer. Leveraging a colossal VA data of 1.7 million veterans with cancer, this study will also generate a predictive model of venous thromboembolism in patients with cancer, which will be validated in a highly diverse patient cohort at BMC. The educational/training component of this study will closely align with the research mission of CAT-HD. This grant application was supported by Thrombosis ARC directed by Dr. Chitalia and co-directed by Prof Ravid and is funded by DOM since 2015.
