Research Impact
Our annual Heart 2 Heart Benefit is designed to showcase the stories of our community’s youngest heart heroes and those supporters who go above and beyond for cardiac patients. Money raised from our annual event are used towards advancing research supporting quality of life initiatives for cardiac patients in alignment with our mission of “one transplant for life”.
timing
This event is held annually in the fall in Brookfield, WI.
beneficiary
Since our inception in 2016, we have been honored to donate over $170,000 in funding for research projects at both Children’s Wisconsin and the Versiti Blood Research Institute to further transplant research and positively impact outcomes for solid organ transplant patients. Learn more about these research projects below.
Funded Research Projects
antibody research
In partnership with Versiti Wisconsin, we are proud to fund a diagnostic research project focused on predicting rejection outcomes in transplant patients. This groundbreaking research will have an impact on advancing patient care in the coming months.
in-body scanner
As part of the commitment of the Herma Heart Institute at Children's Wisconsin to enhance care and medical knowledge, the heart transplant team has designed a clinical project focused on better assessing fluid status in pediatric cardiac patients. Utilizing an body scanner the team is able to:
provide accurate measurements of weight and muscle / water / fat mass which helps differentiate and quantify meaningful goal directed weight gain of muscle and fat vs. fluid retention from heart failure
better assess fluid status weight gain pre and post transplant
create an individualized cardiac rehab plan based on segmental body analysis
ecmo flow redesign
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO as it is commonly known, is a machine that pumps and oxygenates a patient's blood outside of their body when their heart and lungs need to heal. Over the past 5 years, >95,000 adults and children have been placed on ECMO globally. Of this population, only 52% have been successful in surviving once the machine is removed. Unfortunately, a common issue with this process are blood clots which are a leading cause of secondary complications such as uncontrolled bleeding and strokes.
The current process and statistics are unacceptable. The Foundation has partnered with researchers at Children's Wisconsin to fund a groundbreaking study which addresses this issue. The focus of this investigation is to understand the flow of blood through the machine's circuit where clots are most commonly formed, and improve the design with biocompatible materials (ie: materials that interact with human blood without forming clots).
This innovative research will decrease the morbidity rate of patients needing ECMO and increase overall survival rates globally for both adult and pediatric cardiac patients.
