News and Updates

Dr. Suman Kundu and Dr. Matthew Freiberg's work studying insomnia as an independent predictor of incident cardiovascular disease in people living with HIV was published on February 7, 2019. You can read the article here. 

V-CREATE researcher, Meredith Duncan, was recognized at the 2018 AHA Scientific Sessions with the Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award for the highest rated abstract from the United States. Duncan's abstract utilized Framingham Heart Study data to examine the impact of quitting smoking relative to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Prior evidence supports rapid elimination of excess risk within a few year since quitting, but these data were simulated or derived using cohorts with few assessments of smoking status during follow-up.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) recently secured its third American Heart Association (AHA) Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) award to address the challenges of limb problems in peripheral artery disease (PAD). The four-year, $3.7 million grant will provide funding for the Medical Center’s project “Microvascular Disease Determines Limb Outcomes in PAD.”

The work of our investigators have recently been featured by the Washington Post and the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. Dr. Brittain's study on HIV and pulmonary hypertension in the Veterans Aging Cohort Study was featured by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. 

Center investigators, Dr. Hilary Tindle and Dr. Quinn Wells, have been working on personalizing tobacco cessation treatment. Current smokers interested in quitting can get tested for the speed of nicotine metabolism ("normal" or "slow"), which may help in pharmaceutical tailoring. This work has been featured on research news @ Vanderbilt.

The Tennessee Valley Healthcare System in Nashville is the newest site of the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS). The Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) is a prospective, observational cohort study of HIV- positive and an age/race/site matched control group of HIV- negative veterans in care in the United States.  More information about the overall study can be found on Yale's VACS website. 

V-CREATE and VACS's work looking at individuals with HIV infection and their heart failure outcomes was recently featured in research news @ Vanderbilt. This is the first large study to reveal a higher risk of heart failure with reduced and preserved ejection fraction in HIV-infected individuals. The research news article highlights Dr.

If you are interested in getting to know V-CREATE Director Dr. Freiberg, take a look at the Uganda Russia Boston Alcohol Network for Alcohol Research Collabroation on HIV/AIDS (URBAN ARCH) Spotlight.  

Collaborator Dr. Joyce Chang, PhD, received the honor of Statistician of the Year by Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Statistical Association.