Rebecca Vanderpool

My research focuses on quantifying right ventricular-vascular coupling and pulmonary vascular stiffness in patients and animal models with pulmonary vascular disease. During my postdoctoral training in Belgium with Dr. Robert Naeije, MD, PhD, I established upper limit of normal of the increase in pulmonary artery pressure with exercise in normal patients. In collaboration with another group, we were able to show that subjects with pulmonary vascular disease will have decreased distensibility of the resistance vessels and an increase of pulmonary artery pressure outside of the limits of normal. During my postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh in the Vascular Medicine Institute, my research focused on quantifying the interaction between the right ventricle and pulmonary circulation using the ratio of stroke volume to end-systolic volume in the right ventricle. We were the first to investigate the association between RV-PA coupling and mortality and transplant in pulmonary hypertension patients. Through collaborations in the Vascular Medicine Institute, I quantified right ventricular function in animal models of pulmonary arterial hypertension and pulmonary hypertension in the setting of left heart disease. As a new investigator at the University of Arizona, I am continuing the clinical research to quantify right ventricular function in patients with pulmonary vascular disease and investigate the effect of therapy on right ventricular function, RV-PA coupling, and pulmonary vascular stiffness in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.