RIH’s Lassaletta gets two-year research grant

PROVIDENCE – Dr. Antonio Lassaletta, a fellow in cardiothoracic-surgery research at Rhode Island Hospital, has been awarded a two-year research fellowship, one of two grants awarded in 2011 from the Thoracic Surgery Foundation for Research and Education.
The grant will support Lassaletta’s research in measuring the changes in blood supply to the heart in swine, in order to investigate the effects of regenerative medicine.
His goal is to determine if swine with Type I diabetes, suffering from reduced blood flow to the heart possibly brought on by coronary-artery disease, will show improvement after the subjects receive a surgically implanted pump that encourages blood-vessel growth in the heart.
The research will also examine if these improvements will be sustained with the addition of resveratrol, a widely used, unregulated supplement that has shown improved blood flow to the heart in humans.
Lassaletta’s research is being conducted under the guidance of Dr. Frank Sellke, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. &#8226