Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to orchestrate research collaborations among the great depth of talent at the University of Michigan. With the increasing number of older people in our society, the burden of cardiovascular diseases will continue to grow. One laboratory cannot possibly tackle all the complexities as to how aging impacts the cardiovascular system.
The M-BoCA program will be multidisciplinary and harness expertise from researchers with diverse but synergistic areas of expertise. Our goals are to enhance the quality of research and increase research output with the ultimate goal of understanding how aging impacts the cardiovascular system and cardiovascular diseases. The program also has important educational and training missions: provide enhanced mentoring to trainees and provide educational forums in the area of cardiovascular aging. Lastly, we aim to provide pilot funds to investigators (with a focus on junior faculty) who wish to develop new avenues in the area of cardiovascular aging.
Our hope is that the members and participants of M-BoCA will benefit from the synergistic research collaborations that the program will provide. There will be opportunities for basic scientists and translational investigators to meet and share ideas. By bringing together researchers with complementary expertise we hope to fill in parts of the puzzle as to how aging impacts the cardiovascular system. We hope to substantially advance our knowledge on how aging impacts the cardiovascular system and also educate the scientific community and lay population in the area.
I am deeply grateful for the support of the Frankel Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan Health System for all of their support in providing the opportunity for the development of the M-BoCA program. I am also very grateful for the support from the National Institute on Aging for a leadership award (K07AG050096) to support me in the development of this program.
Looking forward to the collaborations to come!
Sincerely,
Daniel R. Goldstein
Director of M-BoCA