Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) awarded Vanderbilt University Medical Center a $190,188 Project Grant effective April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2031, under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837). This K23 career development award supports Dr. Jonah Garry's mentored research program investigating fatty acid metabolic drivers of right ventricular dysfunction in heart failure-associated pulmonary hypertension (HF-PH). The project will deliver foundational research capacity building in advanced statistical methods for high-dimensional molecular data, human genomics, prospective cohort study design and execution, and scientific communication skills. The award enables the candidate to develop expertise in translational cardiovascular research focused on understanding molecular mechanisms underlying right ventricular dysfunction in HF-PH—a condition affecting 2.4 to 5.6 million Americans and representing a leading cause of morbidity and mortality.

The research program comprises three integrated aims utilizing a biorepository of plasma samples from HF-PH subjects to assess whether fatty acid metabolism-related proteins associate with right ventricular dysfunction and to evaluate how sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors modulate fatty acid metabolism and right ventricular function. The project is designed to identify shared molecular mechanisms of right ventricular dysfunction across pulmonary hypertension subtypes, potentially broadening the applicability of fatty acid metabolism-directed treatments across multiple disease etiologies and advancing clinical therapeutic options for this high-impact patient population.