Dr. Helen Collins, Associate Professor in the Center, will be one of the Keynote Speakers at this week's 2026 Vascular and Heart Research Symposium at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech. #cardiosky @uoflenvirome.bsky.social @uoflmedicine.bsky.social

For more information and to read the paper, please see the following link: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42544857/

New research from the Hellmann and Sansbury labs shows PM2.5 doesn’t just irritate the lungs — it reversibly disrupts key inflammation‑resolving lipid pathways and red‑blood‑cell homeostasis. A powerful reminder that air pollution reaches far beyond the respiratory system @uoflenvirome.bsky.social

Super excited to announce our latest publication in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health on the importance of sleep health during pregnancy and the negative impact that sleep disruption can have on cardiometabolic health

Excited for next week. Big Collins lab announcement loading. The start of a wonderful collaboration that I could have never imagined having. Thank you for working with us, Martha Gulati. I look forward to what is to come. It is such an honor to work with a giant in women’s cardiovascular health.

Congratulations to summer undergraduate research students, Navya Goli (Haberzettl lab) and Ryli Bulla (Gibb lab), who presented this afternoon at the Undergraduate Summer Research Showcase. They both did exceptionally well this summer with their projects and at the showcase. Well done. #cardiosky

Congratulations to Dr. Helen E. Collins (pictured) for being named Chair Elect for the American Heart Association Basic Cardiovascular Sciences (BCVS) Communications Committee for 2026-2028. #Cardiosky @ahascience.bsky.social @uoflenvirome.bsky.social

Fibroblast-specific TAK1 deletion improved cardiac function and reduced fibrosis after myocardial infarction in male mice. 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s414... #CardioResearch #HeartFailure #MI #Fibroblasts #Inflammation

TAK1 drives inflammatory fibroblast acquisition and shapes myocardial infarction responses in male mice - Nature Communications

After a heart attack, fibroblasts help coordinate inflammation and repair, but the signals controlling this response are unclear. Here, the authors show that TAK1 drives an inflammatory fibroblast sta...

doi.org

Proud to share a new Nature Communications paper led by Dr. Daniel Nguyen of the Hill lab. The team identified TAK1 as a gatekeeper of inflammatory cardiac fibroblasts, regulating immune cell recruitment and post-MI remodeling.

This week on Circulation on the Run: Bradley Maron and BCVS Council Chair Sean Wu discuss #BCVS priorities for 2026, standards for science in multi-omics, and ways to improve the clinical and translational relevance of basic science. Listen here: www.ahajournals.org/do/10.1161/p...

Congratulations to our Center Director, Dr. Steven Jones (pictured), for being named Chair Elect for the American Heart Association Basic Cardiovascular Sciences (BCVS) Conference Program Committee for 2026-2028. #CardioSky @uoflenvirome.bsky.social @stevenpjones.bsky.social @ahascience.bsky.social

Recognizing sensitive exposure windows could help identify intervention strategies in the future and indicates that timing is as important a contributor to air pollution toxicity. Congratulations to the team on this paper, which can be found here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42384942/

In contrast, changes in glucose homeostasis seem to occur independent of the advanced pulmonary antioxidant defense during the active phase.

The team found that exposure to concentrated PM2.5 during the inactive phase induces a more profound vascular, pulmonary, and systemic inflammatory and redox responses than exposure during the active phase, when antioxidant defenses are enhanced.

The data presented in “Exposure timing is a determinant of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pulmonary, vascular and metabolic toxicity in male mice” reveals chronotoxic effects of PM2.5 air pollution exposure.

New publication alert! Petra Haberzettl and colleagues have a new publication in Toxicological Sciences.

Congratulations to the team on this publication, which can be found at the following link: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42250624/ #CardiovascularResearch #ExerciseScience #NutritionScience #BCAA #AthletesHeart #UniversityOfLouisville #Cardiosky #Exercisesky

Dietary branched-chain amino acids modify the cardiac growth response to exercise in male mice - PubMed

Dietary branched-chain amino acids modify the cardiac growth response to exercise in male mice

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

These results suggest that dietary BCAA availability can modify physiological cardiac remodeling and underscore the importance of considering nutrition when studying exercise adaptations.

The study showed that while exercise training improved exercise capacity regardless of diet, male mice consuming a low-BCAA diet did not exhibit the same exercise-induced cardiac growth observed in mice fed a high-BCAA diet.

Can diet influence how the heart responds to exercise? In this new publication from Drs. Kyle Fulghum, Helen E. Collins, and Bradford Hill, in The Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, investigated whether dietary branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) affect exercise-induced cardiac growth.

Congratulations to Iona Palmer in the lab on our recent editorial in Circulation Research pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42391318/ on recent work by Hahn and Colleagues pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42137938/ #HFpEF #SingleNuclearTranscriptomics

Congratulations to Caitlin Wilkerson on receiving an NIH/NHLBI F31 Predoctoral Fellowship for her project, “Ionic Regulation of Macrophage Phenotype and Plasticity.” This award recognizes not only a promising research program but also Caitlin’s persistence, rigor, and excellence. Well deserved.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Yibing Nong and Dr. Helen Collins on their promotions to Associate Professor, effective July 1, 2026. Their dedication, scholarship, and contributions have made a lasting impact. We celebrate this milestone and look forward to their continued achievements.

Big news! We are excited to announce that Jason Hellmann (pictured) has been awarded an NIH S10 grant to upgrade and expand our lipidomics capabilities. We can’t wait to bring this next-generation analytical power to our research community. #massspectrometry #lipidomics #NIH #cardiosky

Excited to share the latest review in AJP-Heart from the Laboratory of Dr. Helen Collins, led by Avery N. Kendall. From bump to pump: extracellular matrix remodeling, dynamics, and biomechanics in the maternal heart explores how the maternal heart adapts during pregnancy.

Sometimes, people come into your life briefly, you interact, you learn things, and then they leave. But, sometimes people come into your life, fully engaged, motivated, kind, and passionate, and they force you to grow and develop skills too.

This is an exciting step forward for research aimed at understanding how emerging e‑cigarette additives influence cardiovascular and autonomic health. It’s great to see this important work gaining momentum and support. #CardiovascularHealth #Vaping #PublicHealth #NIH #Research #Cardiosky

More good news is coming out of the Carll Lab in the Center — and it’s arriving in rapid succession. Dr. Alex Carll (pictured) has been awarded a $3.9M NIH R01 grant for a new project titled: “Cardiorespiratory and Autonomic Impacts of Coolants in E‑Cigarette Aerosols.”

For more information, the manuscript and associated press release from the American Heart Association can be found at the following links: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42290371/ newsroom.heart.org/news/can-coo...

Cooling additives in e-cigs aren’t harmless. New work from the Carll Lab shows synthetic coolants (WS‑3, WS‑23) ↑ autonomic imbalance and trigger ventricular arrhythmias—independent of nicotine. Implication: “ice” flavors may elevate cardiac risk beyond nicotine alone. #Vaping #Cardiosky