Topic-focused Funded Research

The AHA and Allen Frontiers Group, along with additional contributors including the Oskar Fischer Project and Henrietta B. and Frederick H. Bugher Foundation, have committed more than $43 million to disrupt the incremental trajectory of brain health science and open new frontiers of discovery.

In March 2020, the AHA put out an unprecedented rapid response call for cardiovascular/cerebrovascular research proposals to address the growing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this issue's urgency, the focus was on innovative, highly impactful short-term proposals (9-12 months) that can show progress within the period of this award.

The rapid pace of e-cigarette products entering the market without essential safety information requires an equally rapid, ambitious, comprehensive response on the part of the research/scientific community. The AHA committed $20 million to fund bold, ground-breaking research projects focused on the health impacts of nicotine and nicotine delivery products -- and to prevent and/or reverse the developing epidemic of nicotine addiction -- in children and youth.

The AHA committed up to $10 million to fund research on understanding the mechanism(s) underlying cardiac, vascular and cerebrovascular effects of  COVID-19 and Long COVID, as well as mechanisms that contribute to differential susceptibility to Long COVID.