Specialized Centers of Clinically Oriented Research Programs in Pulmonary Hypertension Reported Progress at the PHA Scientific Sessions
Recently, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute awarded 2 Specialized Centers of Clinically Oriented Research (SCCOR) program grants in pulmonary hypertension. The SCCOR program requires clinical and basic scientists with a broad range of skills to work together on a unified theme, with special emphasis on clinically relevant research.
The goal of the SCCOR program is to encourage multidisciplinary research on clinically relevant problems to allow basic science findings to be more rapidly applied to clinical situations. It is expected that over 50% of the funded research is clinical and interactions between clinical and basic scientists are expected to strengthen the research, enhance the translation of fundamental research findings to the clinical setting, and identify new research directions. In addition, each SCCOR project must have a defined organizational and administrative structure to enhance and enable interactions between investigators to increase the rate of translation of basic research findings to clinical applications.
At the recent Scientific Sessions at the Pulmonary Hypertension Association 8th International Conference, the principal investigators for the 2 SCCOR programs in pulmonary hypertension—Dr Paul Hassoun from Johns Hopkins University and Dr Kurt Stenmark from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, reported on progress made in each of their research programs. These are summarized in the following reports.