Research

Area of Focus

The CVmedLab is focused on studying cardiovascular effects of common chronic diseases (hypertension, type 2 diabetes, thromboembolic disorders) and optimizing drug therapy to minimize risks of these diseases.

A major focus is on adverse effects of chronic uncontrolled blood pressure (hypertension) and ways to optimize antihypertensive drug therapy to mitigate these adverse effects. We have particular expertise in the area of treatment-resistant hypertension.

Methods

Our research spans population and clinical sciences related to cardiovascular disease and its treatment. This includes both observational research, as well as clinical trial work, primarily through my collaboration with colleagues in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.

We are also interested in methodologic research for using electronic health record (EHR) data, including how to minimize misclassification when measuring longitudinal drug exposure from EHR prescribing data, and methods for dealing with missingness in EHR data and biases associated with missing data.

Funding

Current funding for the lab is through the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) via our work on optimizing antihypertensive drug selection (K01 HL138172), high-throughput screening for antihypertensive prescribing cascades (R21 HL159576), and our recently-funded study evaluating blood pressure-lowering mechanisms of minocycline in resistant hypertension (2R01 HL132448-05). Dr. Smith is also the pharmacy lead for the Women’s IschemiA TRial to Reduce Events In Non-ObstRuctive CAD (WARRIOR) trial.

Publications

A complete list of my lab’s journal publications can be found on PubMed or Google Scholar. Newer publications are also available via ORCID. We provide pdfs of most of our pubs, but if for some reason you cannot access the link, or a particular journal, please email me for an author’s print.