Our History and Mission

The Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences (CICS) was established in 2009 by a collaboration agreement between the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA) and Kowa Company, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan).

The goals of CICS are to promote better understanding of the mechanisms of cardiovascular inflammation and cardiometabolic disorders and to enhance further advancement in cardiovascular prevention and therapy through a translational research program that consists of investigators from academia and industry with multidisciplinary backgrounds acting in concert in a shared space.

Featured Scientist

Mark Blaser is a Research Scientist who joined CICS in 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Elena Aikawa’s research group. Here, Mark’s work has focused on applying multi-omics and systems biology approaches to study congenital calcific aortic valve disease, and to explore how bioengineered model systems recapitulate unique aspects of human disease. Recently, Mark and collaborators developed a multi-omics approach to investigate differential disease drivers of vascular and valvular calcification, and identified extracellular vesicle cargoes with potent and tissue-specific abilities to modulate cardiovascular mineralization. He is always energized by the truly interdisciplinary nature of his field, and is grateful for the opportunities he has had to work on everything from in silico simulations, in vitro bioreactors, genetic mouse models, human tissue omics, and clinical imaging while tackling this disease. Outside of the lab, Mark is a rabid tech enthusiast and proud father who enjoys exploring Boston with his family.