University of Michigan’s Katherine Gallagher MD says her 2012 Wylie Scholar Award allowed her to jumpstart her lab and make discoveries regarding how immune cells regulate inflammation, which is thought to lead to vascular disease. She brings a data-driven, personalized medicine approach to patient care. A powerhouse vascular surgeon-scientist, Dr. Gallagher was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2022 for her innovative research.

In 2022 we awarded a Health Equity grant to a collaborative project team from the University of Arizona, USC, and Casa Colina Hospital. This project is addressing the increased risk of diabetic foot wounds and leg amputations among patients with peripheral artery disease from low-income neighborhoods. The team is piloting a patient-centered peer support approach to teach low-income vascular patients, who commonly experience emotional distress, coping strategies and ways to navigate the healthcare system.

Each year, through the Vascular Health Impact Network (VHIN), we convene stakeholders across vascular health fields, including patients, physicians, nurses, researchers, industry, and regulators. These VHIN Innovation Summits have helped identify gaps in current research that must be addressed to advance vascular innovation and have resulted in significant patient-centered research. This year’s Summit will focus on how precision medicine can advance vascular health.

In 2020, we awarded two projects (a UCSF-University of Florida collaboration, and a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Vanderbilt collaboration) to identify biological factors (biomarkers) that predict success or failure of vascular repair procedures in patients with peripheral artery disease and abdominal aortic aneurysms. This work may lead to validated tests that predict inflammatory response to vascular healing.

Learning from the experiences and preferences of a diverse set of people informs efforts to make clinical care and research more equitable and patient-centered. In 2021, a team from Duke and UCSF received our Collaborative Patient-Centered Research Grant to gather information regarding barriers to care and research from patients suffering from chronic limb-threatening ischemia.

My research helps develop better treatment options for the 10 million Americans with diabetic foot ulcers who are at risk for a major lower extremity amputation” says the 2022 Wylie Scholar, Tammy Nguyen, MD PhD. Tammy, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, is studying cells from bone marrow of patients with amputated limbs or toes to improve wound healing in diabetic patients.