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On April 14, 2026, ARCS Atlanta Scholar Alum, Dr. Michael Davis, participated in a brilliant ARCS Forward event with current ARCS San Diego Scholar Brandon Vogt.  Dr. Michael Davis is Director of the Children’s Heart Research and Outcomes Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  He is also a Professor and Associate Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University.  Brandon Vogt, a current ARCS Scholar and PhD Candidate in Bioengineering at UC San Diego, researches sex differences in cardiovascular disease.  

Brandon began the program speaking on his research optimizing sex-specific drug combinations to treat aortic valve stenosis.  In a highly technical presentation, we learned that cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death globally.  Men are twice as likely to develop heart disease as women, but women have a 50% higher chance of an incorrect diagnosis.  Additionally, women have a 25% lower survival rate after heart attacks than men, showing that a male bias in biomedical research persists.  This underscores the vital importance of Brandon’s research on sex-specific drug combinations.  Brandon develops predictive models to pinpoint synergistic drug interactions; he leverages proteomics to identify individual biomarkers, and he designs high-throughput hydrogel biomaterial platforms for antifibrotic drug optimization.

Following Brandon, Dr. Davis told us about his journey after receiving the ARCS Award.  After completing his PhD at Emory, Dr. Davis completed his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and MIT, studying tissue engineering.  He was recruited back to Emory and Georgia Tech for the joint Biomedical Engineering Department between Emory and Georgia Tech.  In 2012, he was invited to become the Director of the Children’s Heart Research and Outcomes Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to create pediatric-specific therapies.  Dr. Davis stressed that the disease process in children is very different from adults and many therapies designed for adults do not work in children.  Because children are growing, Dr. Davis 3-D prints valves that can grow with the child in an effort to prevent multiple surgeries.  Several years ago in one of our most fascinating field trips, ARCS members went to Dr. Davis’ lab where we witnessed a pediatric heart valve being 3-D printed.  It is not possible to adequately summarize the groundbreaking research of Dr. Davis using stem cell therapies, machine learning, digital modeling, and 3-D printed developing hearts, but we encourage you to watch the recording of this excellent ARCS Forward event here.