Less than a month after joining the Cornell faculty, Robin Davisson, professor of biomedical sciences and the wife of President David Skorton, was busy setting up her laboratory on the Ithaca campus. But she also managed to find time to attend a prestigious working group session on vascular disease and hypertension convened by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), July 24 and 25, in Washington, D.C.

Davisson holds a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

NHLBI, a program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides leadership for a national program in diseases of the heart, blood vessels, lungs and blood, and oversees the NIH Woman's Health Initiative.

Davisson, who arrived at Cornell with three NIH grant projects and one American Heart Association grant, participated in a cardiovascular working group that provided initial input for the NHLBI's three-part strategic planning initiative. Discussions among the group's 26 participants focused on various aspects of cardiovascular disease, including: heart failure and hypertrophy, coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis, vascular disease and hypertension, valvular and congenital diseases, and arrhythmias.

Reports from the group will be reviewed and refined during subsequent phases of the strategic planning process. For more information about the NHLBI, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/strategicplan/.