In March, the Cardiovascular Research Grid, a worldwide digital data network to be based at the Whiting School’s Institute for Computational Medicine (ICM), was awarded $8.5 million in federal support. The grant, which will be allocated over a four-year period, comes from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. This ambitious project aims to find new ways to prevent, detect, and treat life-threatening cardiac ailments by allowing cardiovascular researchers to easily exchange data and expertise on heartrelated illnesses.

With leadership from Johns Hopkins, along with researchers from Ohio State University College of Medicine and the University of California, San Diego, the funding will allow for the development of new software tools that enable large, geographically distributed research teams to connect to the grid. There, all of the participants will be able to access and share experimental data, data analysis tools, and computational models relating to heart function in healthy people and those with cardiac disease.

“There had never been a simple and direct way for cardiovascular researchers to share, analyze, and model this important data,” says the Whiting School’s Raimond Winslow, director of the ICM and principal investigator. “The creation of the Cardiovascular Research Grid will accelerate the discovery of new approaches for treating heart disease.” The Cardiovascular Research Grid will be headquartered in the Whiting School’s new Computational Science and Engineering building, scheduled for completion this fall.