# Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease - Ion channels, Ca2+ regulation and signaling

> **NIH NIH R13** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2024 · $20,000

## Abstract

UC Davis Cardiovascular Symposium
Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease
 -Ion Channels, Ca2+ regulation and 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 cardiovascular 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 the molecular, to
cellular, 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 systems, such as arrhythmias and
vasospasms that are often counterintuitive due to non-linear dynamics interactions. Moreover, just from a
fundamental view, 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 the use of 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 in health and disease. The
proposed interdisciplinary conference is the 8th in this series. The last installment of the conference integrated,
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 and focus on in-depth
comparison of the cardiac and vascular smooth muscle function, with emphasis on ion channels, cellular Ca2+
regulation, and signaling. The aims of this conference will be on (1) summarizing the 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.
As previously done, the conference results will be summarized in the form of a comprehensive review paper,
which will be published in a leading scientific journal that have broad impact on the research community.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10996430
- **Project number:** 1R13HL175922-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Donald M Bers
- **Activity code:** R13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $20,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-01 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10996430

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10996430, Systems Approach to Understanding Cardiovascular Disease - Ion channels, Ca2+ regulation and signaling (1R13HL175922-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10996430. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*