STANFORD: Donation to Fund Pulmonary Vascular Center
Stanford University Medical Center received an anonymous $31.8 million donation to establish a center for the treatment of pulmonary vascular disease in adults and children, illnesses that range from congenital heart disease to autoimmune and clotting disorders, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Made through the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, the donation will consolidate and expand current clinical and laboratory services, augment researcher recruitment, and educate primary care physicians in early disease diagnosis. "It's a tremendous, generous thing, and we have plenty of good use for it," Dr. Ramona Doyle, a heart-lung transplant surgeon at Stanford and co-director of the Vera Moulton Wall Center said. She added, "We've been seeing patients for a long time, but this will mean a new effort on a much larger scale," including greater research collaboration between the schools of medicine and engineering. Dr. Jeffrey Feinstein, the Wall Center's director and assistant professor in pediatric cardiology, said that treatment of pulmonary hypertension -- one of the diseases the grant will address -- "carries new promise as a result of recent advances, but there is a striking need for earlier diagnosis and better treatment" (Workman, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/2).