January 7, 2003

American Heart Association Grants to UTMB

The American Heart Association’s Texas affiliate has awarded $248,000 to two University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers for their promising investigations related to the cardiovascular system.

David W. Good, Ph.D., and Glenn C. Hunter, M.D., each received a $124,000 grant to support their research. Good is studying renal mechanisms that prevent the harmful effects blood acidity levels can have on cardiovascular function in people with heart disease, while Hunter is examining how the growth rate of cells lining the heart and blood vessels affects vein grafts in coronary bypass surgery.

Good, a professor of internal medicine, is exploring the mechanisms needed for kidneys to maintain stable acidity in the blood and other bodily fluids. Fluctuations in acidity can impair cardiac function and the regulation of blood pressure, especially in people with cardiovascular disease. The research goal is to develop therapeutic strategies to improve acid control by studying how certain drugs, hormones and other factors affect the kidney cells’ regulation of acid excretion through urine.

Good said the grant from the AHA has been invaluable to his research. “This grant has been of major benefit to our laboratory by providing support necessary to expand our research into important new areas of renal cell biology,” he said. 

“I want to thank the American Heart Association for considering my research worthy of funding," Hunter added. "This support offers me the chance to help improve the effectiveness of coronary bypass grafts.” 

A professor of surgery and the Alonzo Alverly Ross, M.D. Centennial Chair in General Surgery, Hunter is attempting to identify the role that endothelial cell growth plays in veins grafted to the heart in a bypass operation. Endothelial cells line the heart as well as blood and lymphatic vessels. In heart bypass operations, surgeons take veins from a heart patient’s leg and link them to the aorta—the main blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to organs—to reroute blood flow around an obstructed artery.

The funds raised by the AHA’s Texas chapter—totaling $21 million in 2001—primarily remain in the state, with a small percentage going to the national organization. Approximately 30 percent of funding goes to research, and the rest supports public cardiovascular disease education programs.

Gene Curry, board chairman of the AHA-Texas Affiliate and an operations analyst in UTMB’s Facilities Operations and Management Department, said the research Good and Hunter are conducting deserves recognition. 

“These UTMB recipients exemplify the kinds of quality research funded by the American Heart Association,” Curry said.

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