Donations - Research

Life-saving techniques, drug therapies, and state-of-the-art equipment would not be available without research. Donations play a vital role in financially supporting the efforts of our researchers investigating ways to improve the livelihood of patients with heart complications.

The division recently committed donated funds for use on several projects, among them:

1. “Identification of biomarkers for heart failure in children with single ventricle physiology”
   
   Principle researcher Harold Bernstein, MD, PhD along with Drs. Theresa Tacy, Michael Brook, Jeffrey Fineman, and Amee Shah are investigating whether certain proteins in children with single ventricle physiology (a lethal congenital heart defect where there is only one ventricle present rather than the normal two) can act as measurements for the presence and severity of heart failure so that they can use this to determine response to therapy.
   
   
2. “Evaluation of Fetal and Neonatal detection of congenital heart disease in Guatemala”.
   
   In line with UCSF’s goal of “advancing health worldwide”, Pediatric Cardiology Fellow Sara Trucco, MD along with Joaquin Barnoya, MD, MPH go global in helping the underserved population of Guatemala. These UCSF researchers are working on establishing an academic relationship with the Cardiovascular Unit (UNICAR) Hospital in Guatemala to collect, review data , and evaluate the current state of fetal and neonatal detection of congenital heart disease in Guatemala. The result of which would be the development of an interventional study to improve fetal detection rates of critical heart disease in Guatemala.

These are just a small sample of ongoing research projects conducted by the UCSF Pediatric Cardiology team.