About the CSTPVR
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Description of the Program

Providing a dynamic, transdisciplinary training environment is a crucial requirement for the necessary future advances in vascular research. The aim of our program is to develop research scientists with the expertise necessary to build future transdisciplinary teams focused on the understanding, treatment and prevention of vascular disease.

Students choose research topics co-supervised by 2 or more participating faculty members from different disciplines. We have identified 5 key training program themes based on existing areas of research excellence, which are:

1. Genetics and Genomics of Vascular Disease
2. Vascular Cell Biology and Biochemistry
3. Vascular Imaging and Image Processing/Modelling
4. Vascular Disease Outcomes
5. Biomechanics and Hemodynamics

The following table gives examples of transdisciplinary projects:

Discover and develop novel 3D ultrasound measurements of atherosclerotic disease progression/regression for diabetics and other high-risk patients.
Define the hallmarks of the vulnerable plaque in animal models of disease using high resolution MR imaging and spectroscopy.
Vascular biology and hemodynamics/biomechanics: Molecular imaging in atherogenesis
Vascular therapeutics: Micro imaging of the vasculature
Imaging smooth muscle migration in animal models of atherosclerosis

Components of the Program
We are committed to maintaining the specialized existing training available within the participating University Departments, but enhancing them with transdisciplinary training. Our approach is to provide special new courses to introduce students to topics and concepts from other fields and then coalesce these through an integrated problem-based journal club focused on solving problems through a transdisciplinary approach.

Please go to the Curriculum page to see the details of the various components:  Curriculum

Interactive transdisciplinary group work with problem-based learning components

This format presents students with real problems in hypothesis-driven research. Students from different disciplines are assigned to small transdisciplinary teams and posed relevant questions. Students are expected to take the problem from the evaluation of the background information, development of the experimental method, the choice of techniques for evaluating results, the set up of any pre-clinical or clinical trials, understanding of the ethical issues, and the societal cost/benefit issues. Finally, the team gives a 30-minute presentation with 30 minutes of discussion.

Example questions to be considered by the teams might be:
Can an experimental mouse model of atherosclerosis be used to sensitively quantify progression/regression in longitudinal serial studies? As a discussion guide, the students may consider the following questions: What gene to change? What vector should be used? Should a transgenic or knockout mouse be used? What are the ethical issues with these experiments? What imaging modality to use? What should be measured? What is the sensitivity of the various imaging options? What is the inter-observer variability in the measurement? Can change be measured that is statistically significant? What possible experiments can be designed? What is their potential impact of performing these experiments successfully?
Should carotid stenting be carried out? As a discussion guide, the students may consider the following questions: What are the current treatment options for carotid atherosclerotic disease? What are the diagnostic techniques used to identify carotid disease? At what stage in the disease progression can stenting be considered? Should radioactive or non-radioactive stents be used? How can safety and efficacy of stenting be determined? How can a clinical trial be constructed to answer this question? What are the ethical issues involved in determining safety and efficacy? What imaging modality can be used in the trial? Does the measurement have sufficient sensitivity to allow periodic measurement of the state of the disease? What are the cost/benefit issues in performing this procedure?