# Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease and Arrhythmias - Cell diversity in the cardiovascular system, cell-autonomous and cell-cell signaling > **NIH NIH R13** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2022 · $30,000 ## Abstract UC Davis Cardiovascular Symposium Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease and Arrhythmias -Cell diversity in the cardiovascular system, cell-autonomous and cell-cell signaling- Cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, heart failure, arrhythmias and stroke, are the number one killer in the developed world. In order to develop better and more effective therapies to treat heart diseases, it is critically important for scientists and physicians to obtain in-depth and accurate understanding of the mechanisms underlying heart and vascular function and dysfunction. In recent decades, researchers studying heart and vascular diseases have been accumulating more and more experimental data from molecular, to cellular, and to tissue and organ levels. However, there is a critical need to integrate these data into mechanistic and quantitative models to understand emergent properties of complex biological system such as arrhythmias and vasospasms that are often counterintuitive (due to non-linear dynamics interactions). Moreover, it is important to understand how different cells of the cardiovascular system may interact with each other in physiology and disease. Here we propose to take the necessary step forward to integrate experimental data into quantitative models that enable using mathematical tools and computational power to understand the complex interactions of the cells and molecules in the cardiovascular system. The unique design of this conference series is to combine experimental study and mathematical modeling to achieve in-depth understanding of the dynamic systems that control cardiovascular function and diseases. The proposed interdisciplinary conference is the 7th in this series. This new installment of the conference will integrate, for the first time, studies in cardiac and vascular tissue. The previous conferences have received overwhelmingly positive evaluations from attendees and resulted in high impact publications. The proposed conference will combine experimental and modeling studies in the field of cardiac and vascular physiology, with topics focused on cell diversity in the cardiovascular system, as it is becoming increasingly evident that a complex interplay of abnormal signaling events among various cell types, including myocytes, fibroblasts, endothelial, neuronal, immune cells, etc. plays a central role in cardiovascular disease. The emphasis of this conference will be on (1) summarizing current state of research in the focus area, (2) identifying consensus and controversy that warrant more investigation, and (3) exchanging ideas, data, and information among the experimentalists and modelers to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations. The conference results will be summarized in the form of comprehensive review papers, which will be published in leading scientific journals that have broad impact on the research community, as before. ## Key facts - **NIH application ID:** 10386681 - **Project number:** 1R13HL162430-01 - **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS - **Principal Investigator:** Donald M Bers - **Activity code:** R13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.) - **Funding institute:** NIH - **Fiscal year:** 2022 - **Award amount:** $30,000 - **Award type:** 1 - **Project period:** 2021-11-23 → 2022-10-31 ## Primary source NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10386681 ## Citation > US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10386681, Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease and Arrhythmias - Cell diversity in the cardiovascular system, cell-autonomous and cell-cell signaling (1R13HL162430-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10386681. Licensed CC0. --- *[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*