(light music)
- Every new idea,
every bold leap forward,
every new treatment,
and every life saved because of medicine
started by asking a question.
Cardiovascular research has come a long way
in a short time.
But we still don't understand everything,
and there's much we can do to better help patients
if we seek answers to the right questions.
At the University of Michigan Cardiovascular
Research Center, we ask and find answers
to those big questions.
- We're trying to develop safe treatments
and medications that can decrease blood clots
without causing risk of bleeding.
- I am trying to find a way
to manage patients with acute aortic dissections.
- I'm trying to understand arterial diseases.
- I'm trying to find the ability
to prevent sudden cardiac death.
- I'm trying to understand
why people how start doing exercise,
they suddenly drop dead.
- How can a single gene mutation
behave so differently in different people,
even within the same family?
- I am trying to cure atrial fibrillation.
- Fibromuscular dysplasia.
- Cardiac arrhythmia.
- Hypo trophic cardiomyopathy.
- Our dream is to get rid of diseases.
- It's a really excited time to be in research
and I think with all the technology
that's now coming on board,
we just have some really unique opportunities
to move science forward
and move it to the clinical arena.
- Simple liaisons and major break throughs
can come from seemingly unrelated inspiration.
That's why we strongly believe in collaboration
at the University of Michigan.
Working side by side and together,
our project teams harness the diverse knowledge,
skills, and creative energy
of every researcher to find answers.
Collaboration is key
because nowadays, the technologies and approaches
in biology and in medicine are so complex
that you cannot do anything by yourself.
- The uniqueness of the research at the CVRC
is that it's a team science, team medicine.
- A team effort involves biologists,
physiologists, mathematicians, computer scientists,
cardiologists, and people who are interested,
all of them, through different pathways
on the same question.
- In terms of human potential,
we have individuals who are at the top
of their specialty knowledge
in just about every specialty in cardiovascular disease.
- You just have to go down the hallway
to find one of the world experts
in any type of research or any type of technology.
- [Man] We compliment our treatments
by I do this part, you do the other part,
whatever we do best,
and I think this translates
into an immense benefit to the public we serve.
- [Sharlene] People here care about each other.
They wanna work together, they reach out to you.
And everybody that I've ever spoken with
is so receptive to working together
to answer a question.
- You can start to ask bigger questions.
The scope of your research expands tremendously.
- [Jerome] The atmosphere at the CDRC is simply awesome
because we are all very excited
to be in a fantastic place
in an amazing university and in a place
where collaboration is possible.
- [Daniel] We come to work everyday.
We do the science, we do our homework.
We design the effective and right experiments
so we can get test compounds and drugs
to the clinics and to these patients
as quickly as possible.
- So everything is possible
as long as you put your minds to it,
as long as you put resources into it,
and as long as you have the support of the community.
- Patients are waiting for our answers
and we are working very hard
in order to provide them.
- Our patients really need these answers
to help us come up with better ways to care for them.
- I believe in creativity in medicine and in biology.
I believe that any science
or any human activity that does not progress forward
is meant to disappear.
I see an enormous drive
in order to be at the forefront of everything.
- [Sharlene] Our goal at the University of Michigan
is to think big.
That we wanna answer those hard questions
and we ultimately wanna get as close as we possibly can
to curing disease.
- [Jerome] And I am very excited because I feel
that the technologies of tomorrow,
the treatments of tomorrow,
are developed right here at the Cardiovascular
Research Center.
- The research we do may not help patients today,
but at the University of Michigan,
we're asking the big questions.
Tomorrow's answers start here.
(upbeat music)