Stanford Cardiovascular Institute

12/17/2025

🚨 When Life-Saving Cancer Drugs Put the Heart at Risk 🚨

Targeted cancer therapies like tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have transformed cancer care. Though, for many patients, they may come at a serious cost to cardiovascular health. High blood pressure, heart failure, and arrhythmias can limit how long patients can safely stay on these otherwise powerful cancer-treatments.

🫀 New research from the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, published in Science Translational Medicine, led by Drs. Amit Manhas, PhD, Yu Liu (刘宇), and, senior author, Dr. Nazish Sayed, MD PhD, uncovers why this happens and points to a promising path forward.

"The study focused on sunitinib, a widely used TKI that targets the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR). VEGFR signaling is critical for blood vessel growth, which tumors rely on to survive. Blocking this pathway slows cancer progression, but it also affects normal blood vessel function. The researchers found that sunitinib disrupted a critical endothelial process known as mechanotransduction: the ability of blood vessels to sense and respond to the physical forces generated by flowing blood."

This work reveals a clear biological explanation for why this cancer drug can harm the heart and why these effects may persist even after treatment ends. Importantly, the study also points to a promising new strategy: protecting vascular health to reduce cardiovascular side effects during cancer therapy.

👉 Read the full story to learn more on how to reshape safer cancer care, written by Dr. Amanda Chase: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi//mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/how-cancer-drugs-disrupt-blood-vessel-sensing.html

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12/09/2025

We're excited to have Dr. Mark Skylar-Scott give his talk today at our weekly Frontiers in Cardiovascular seminar!

Join us today at 12pm PST to hear his talk on “Scaling Tissue Engineering Towards Whole Organ Biofabrication" and visit https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/events/frontiers-in-cv-science.html for more information!

12/02/2025

Monitoring cerebral blood flow is a necessary key in clinicians tracking brain development in pediatric patients. It offers clinicians insight on how developmental brains receive oxygen and nutrients to the brain, while also removing metabolic waste.

In a recent study published in Neuroradiology, researchers at Stanford University, led by Moss Zhao, DPhil and Gary Steinberg, MD, PhD, examined how arterial spin labeling can be used to evaluate changes in cerebral blood flow and arterial transit time.

Read more on this exciting study here: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/advanced-imaging-technologies-for-young-brains.html
EurekAlert!: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1107612

11/24/2025

Currently up to 10% of women experience high blood pressure during pregnancy – and this number is growing. Over the past two decades, the proportion of women with hypertension during pregnancy has increased 25%.

To better understand the mechanisms underlying the connection between hypertension during pregnancy and future heart disease, a team of investigators led by Mark Hlatky, Chi-Hung Shu, Nima Aghaeepour, and Virginia Winn conducted a study that was recently published in Hypertension.

Read more here:

Currently up to 10% of women experience high blood pressure during pregnancy – and this number is growing. Over the past two decades, the proportion of women with hypertension during pregnancy has increased 25%. The problem with this statistic is that what seem like temporary changes in blood pres...

11/20/2025

The 2025 Stanford CVI Fall Quarterly Newsletter highlights recent news, research discoveries, and awards across our institute.

The mission of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) is to ignite new research, establish educational programs, foster a diverse and inclusive environment, and support the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas.

Towards that mission, the 10th annual Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium will be held on April 27th and April 28th. Registration and information found at tinyurl.com/sdds2026.

Read the 2025 Fall Quarterly Newsletter here: https://stanfordmedicine.app.box.com/file/2033471692450?s=80o41aluzclv4ju0ulc7mejiru1p8rnh

11/18/2025

We're excited to have Dr. Han Zhu give her talk at our weekly Frontiers in Cardiovascular seminar!

Join us today at 12pm PST to hear her talk on “Bridging Bench to Bedside at the Cardio-Immune and Cardio-Oncologic Interface" and visit https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/events/frontiers-in-cv-science.html to learn more.

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11/03/2025

🌟Exciting News! The 10th Annual Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium (SDDS) is now open for registration! 🌟

The 10th Annual Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium (SDDS) will be held April 27-28, 2026, at the Francis Arrillaga Alumni Center at Stanford University, marking a milestone year. Over the past decade, SDDS has brought together leaders from biotech, pharma, FDA, venture, academia, as well as policy makers and others to explore breakthroughs shaping the future of medicine.

Featuring posters, presentations, and talks from leaders, including: Karen Akinsanya, Christopher Boshoff, Robert Bradway, James Bradner, Hans Clevers, Michael Devoy, Alistair Henry, Sandra Horning, Thomas Hudson, Joe Jimenez, Dean Li, Flavius Martin, Brett Monia, Robert Plenge, Andrew Plump, John Reed, Aviv Regev, and Amit Sinha.

✨ Other exciting sessions include:

Nobel Laureate panel discussions with David Baker, Carolyn Bertozzi, Brian Kobilka, Roger Kornberg, Randy Schekman, and Thomas Südhof.

Space is limited and we sell out every year, so we encourage you to register early to join us this April: tinyurl.com/sdds2026

08/28/2025

An exciting new study led by first author Gema Mondéjar-Parreño, and senior author Joseph C. Wu, published in Circulation, looks at the consequences of fentanyl abuse, specifically those relating to the electrical activity of the heart that determine how the heart controls its rhythm and pumping.

This study offers groundbreaking evidence that fentanyl abuse can impair the function of cardiac cells, leading to rhythm defects. Together with respiratory depression, fentanyl-induced effects on electrophysiology significantly contribute to cardiac arrest.

Read more about this study here: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/exploring-human-ipsc-heart-cells-in-fentanyl-abuse.html
Eurekalert!: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1096327
Biospace: https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/exploring-the-promise-of-human-ipsc-heart-cells-in-understanding-fentanyl-abuse

05/22/2025

Transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis is a disease caused by abnormal protein accumulation in the heart, often leading to adverse heart conditions. With an average survival rate of 2-4 years, it’s critical for patients to be diagnosed early. There are noninvasive means to testing for transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis, yet in many regions the disease is often underdiagnosed.

To address these discrepancies, Gracia Fahed, MD and Kevin Alexander, MD led a study, recently published in JACC: Heart Failure.

Read about the study here: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/poverty-impacts-timely-diagnosis-of-cardiac-amyloidosis.html

05/20/2025

Traumatic injury frequently causes irreparable loss of tissue. Our body’s ability to regenerate lost tissue is limited. Stem cells – cells that have the potential to become any cell type – play a crucial role in tissue repair. Once injury occurs, the local muscle tissue produces a sequence of specific factors that direct the regeneration of damaged muscle by inducing muscle stem cells to grow and change as needed. However, when severe traumatic injuries occur, this process struggles to cope.

Read the latest research from Dr. Ngan Huang, PhD, FAHA, FAIMBE here: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/innovating-with-muscle-bioconstructs.html

05/08/2025

Meet Catherine Beaudin, a 2022 CVI Summer Research Program Alum!

Catherine is currently a medical student at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She shared a little bit about her experience apart of the CVI Summer Research Program.

Keep reading below!

My experience in the Stanford CVI Summer Research Program gave me invaluable opportunities to explore novel aspects of my longstanding interest in cardiovascular research while also taking the time to engage in thoughtful conversations with outstanding peers and mentors. Moreover, I’m tremendously grateful for my experience because two years later, several of my closest and dearest friends remain some of the people I met at Stanford during that transformative summer.

When we asked her about how the program informed her professional trajectory, she told us: “The program provided me with opportunities to gain more perspective on what working at the intersection of medicine and research entails. Learning from a team of cardiothoracic surgeons and being in the OR while coronary artery bypass and mitral valve replacement surgeries were performed showed me that teamwork is at the heart of medicine and research. Altogether, my experiences in the program solidified my intent to pursue a career in medicine in the hopes of providing excellent clinical care while also engaging in scholarly work in the hopes of helping improve the health outcomes of patients.”

If you’d like to read more, please visit Catherine’s article on our website: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/education/cvi-summer-research-program/srp-support-page.html.

The CVI Summer Research Program is designed to provide meaningful research experiences to undergraduate and medical students in the field of cardiovascular science. Our long-term goal is to bolster a pool of scientists and physician-scientists who will support and/or contribute to cardiovascular research and medicine and expose them to the landscape of 21st century translational research and medicine. A primary goal of our program is to advance cardiovascular research and medicine by supporting students from various backgrounds and skillsets.

Are you interested in supporting the CVI Summer Research Program? Check out our website here to read a little bit more about how you can positively impact students like Catherine: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/education/cvi-summer-research-program/srp-support-page.html.

04/30/2025

Congratulations to Sangkyun Cho, SIYEON RHEE, Joseph C. Wu, and other CVI scientists on their recent Nature article on uncovering a new mechanosensing-based mechanism that reduces fibrosis in mice.

Cardiac fibrosis impacts millions of patients and currently has no effective therapy. Cardiac fibrosis is a key component of nearly every form of heart disease, from acute ischemic injury to genetic cardiomyopathies. Despite its widespread impact, fibrosis has remained stubbornly difficult to treat and no effective therapies are available for millions of patients today.

Read more about this exciting research here: https://med.stanford.edu/cvi/mission/news_center/articles_announcements/2025/new-approach-to-treating-cardiac-fibrosis.html