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

Cassandra (Casey) Clift is a post-doctoral fellow who joined CICS in 2021 in Prof. Elena Aikawa’s Calcification group. At CICS, Casey has a strong interest in developing mass spectrometry-based techniques to probe cardiovascular pathobiology. In a recently published study, Casey, along with CICS Research Scientist Dr. Mark Blaser and other collaborators, developed high-throughput bioengineered models of calcific valve disease to understand the role of biomechanics and cell-ECM interactions on cellular and extracellular vesicle proteomics. Since joining CICS, Casey has been awarded the Richard Gorlin Named Fellowship in Physiology from Harvard Medical School’s Cardiovascular Division, and has recently been funded as an American Heart Association Post-Doctoral Fellow. Off the bench, Casey is devoted to community engagement and inclusivity by serving on the boards of the Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Women’s Leadership Committee and the Heart Valve Society Young Professionals Committee. Other than science, Casey enjoys sketching/painting, playing piano, and hiking with her husband and dog Ami!