About Us | Enduring Hearts

About

Our Mission:

A heart transplant is not a cure, but a bridge to life…

Atlanta-based Enduring Hearts launched in 2013 with a mission to fund research that increases the longevity of pediatric heart transplants, improves the quality of life for children living with a new heart and eliminates pediatric heart diseases that may lead to a transplant.

Our Story

Who is Enduring Hearts?

Enduring Hearts is a registered 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to funding innovative research aimed at improving the lives of children living with transplanted hearts.

What does Enduring Hearts do?

We work with our team of leading doctors and scientists in the field of transplantation, pediatric cardiology and immunology to drive leading-edge research that will make a transplant last a lifetime. Our leadership and Board of Directors follow the research process closely, utilizing our business acumen to ensure that the funding is used efficiently and that our investments make an impact.

What is Enduring Hearts?

Enduring Hearts is a 501 c-3 nonprofit organization that is a curator and accelerator of research that will save the lives of kids living with a transplanted heart and end-stage heart failure.

What does Enduring Hearts do?

Why our work is necessary:

A transplant is not a cure. The average heart transplant lasts only 17 years.
One in four transplants will fail largely due to organ rejection. Of those who have another transplant, nearly half will not survive.
Anti-rejection drugs and rejection detection procedures negatively affect their quality of life.
Enduring Hearts is the only nonprofit solely dedicated to research that helps kids with heart transplants live longer, healthier lives.
We fund the critical, yet often overlooked research needed to eliminate rejection, prevent life-threatening complications and reduce the risk that a second transplant will be needed.

Why is Enduring Hearts’ work necessary?

A transplant is not a cure. The average heart transplant only lasts 12 years.
Within 5 years, 38.5% of children with a heart transplant may die. Another 25% may need another heart transplant. Of those who have another transplant, nearly half will not survive.
Organ rejection is at the core of the problem. We need to combat rejection before, during and after the transplant procedure.
The quality of life for these children is negatively impacted by harsh anti-rejection drugs and invasive rejection detection procedures.
Without a curator, funder, and advocate, compelling research would simply remain ideas within the brilliant minds of the physicians and scientist who desperately want to help these kids live a normal healthy life.
There are many organizations that fund research aimed at repairing congenital heart defects, but we are the only organization solely dedicated to helping kids who have received or require transplanted hearts.

Who our work will help:

Babies born with congenital heart defects that cannot be surgically repaired and require a heart transplant.
Children who experience end-stage heart failure through heart disease, infection, and Cardiomyopathy.
Not only patients, but their entire families that all live with the stress of knowing that the transplanted heart may eventually fail.
Many kids who receive other transplanted organs will also experience organ failure due to rejection.
Adult heart transplant recipients.

Our Team

Enduring Hearts’ Leadership & Board

Enduring Hearts is led by our Executive Director and governed by a body of independent professionals in addition to advisement from our Scientific Advisory Committee. Together, we are spurring the momentum of Enduring Hearts to rapidly make a significant impact, at a time when opportunities to advance transplantation science is greater than ever. Our Board of Directors continues to demonstrate a commitment to governance, fundraising, grant-making and establishing partnerships with leading institutions to achieve long-term success.

Carolyn Salvador – Chief Executive Officer
Ankur Chatterjee – Board President
Alok Gupta – Board Vice President
Kelley Gray –Board Secretary
Mike Gahan – Board Treasurer
Patrick Gahan – Founder
Dr. Robert Boucek, M.D.- Board Scientific Liaison
Ruth Manlapas – Board Member
Stephen Ochs – Board Member
Kevin Goodman – Board Member
John Hawkins – Board Member

Debbie Ausburn, Esq – Board Member
Avi Yashchin – Board Member
Darryl Price – Board Member
Dean Bellmoff – Board Member
Joshua Weiner – Board Member
Victoria Ornstein – Board Member
Kelly Fechalos – Director of Business Administration and Corporate Relations
Conner Greenberg – Marketing and Organizational Support Specialist
Raeann Tighe – Executive Administrative Assistant

Scientific Advisory Board

Our Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) is a critical part of the team at Enduring Hearts. The SAC peer-reviews grants several times a year and helps provide invaluable input that enables us to dedicate funds to the most promising research that will save lives for kids who are alive TODAY.

The SAC is comprised of top pediatric cardiologists and immunologists from highly esteemed institutions with many years of both patient care and clinical research.

The SAC ensures that our funding is used to serve the mission of our organization to increase the longevity of pediatric heart transplants, improve the quality of life for children living with a new heart and eliminate pediatric heart diseases that may lead to a transplant.

Scientific Advisory Board

The SAC is comprised of top pediatric cardiologists and immunologists from highly esteemed institutions with many years of both patient care and clinical research.

The SAC ensures that our funding is used to serve the mission of our organization to increase the longevity of pediatric heart transplants, improve the quality of life for transplant recipients and eliminate pediatric heart diseases that could one day lead to transplantation.

Scientific advisory Committee

Janet N. Scheel, M.D.

Washington University, School of Medicine
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Cardiology
St. Louis, MO

To learn more, click here.

Kurt R. Schumacher, M.D.

Pediatric Cardiologist – C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics – University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

To learn more, click here.

George T. Nicholson, M.D.

Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Thomas P. Graham Jr. Division of Cardiology
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

Justin Godown, M.D.

Pediatric Cardiologist- Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Thomas P. Graham Jr. Division of Cardiology
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

To learn more, click here.

Dave Mathews, PhD

Emory University School of Medicine MSTP
Emory Transplant Center, Immunology Research Fellow
Atlanta, GA.

Shriprasad Deshpande, M.D.

Children’s National Medical Center
Medical Director of Pediatric Heart Transplantation
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics – Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia

Melissa Cousino Hood, PhD

Pediatric Heart Transplant Psychologist, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Psychology
University of Michigan Transplant Center
Ann Arbor, Michigan

To learn more, click here.

Michael Davis, PhD, FAHA

Director, Children’s Heart Research and Outcomes Center (HeRO)
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, Emory University
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Research Scholar
Atlanta, GA

To learn more, click here.

Brian Feingold, M.D.

Pediatric Cardiology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Heart Failure and Heart Transplant Programs, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Pittsburgh, PA

To learn more, click here.

Robert Boucek, M.D.

Board Scientific Liaison
Research Affiliate, Seattle Children’s Research Institute
Past Associations:
Chief, Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, University of
Washington School of Medicine, Seattle WA
Chief of Pediatric Cardiology, University of South Florida/All Children’s Hospital
St. Petersburg, FL
Medical Director, Pediatric Cardiac Transplant Program, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Our Expert Review Panel

Lori West, M.D.

Professor, Depts. of Pediatrics, Surgery, Medical Microbiology/ Immunology and Laboratory Medicine/Pathology
Canada Research Chair in Cardiac Transplantation
Director, Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program
Director, Alberta Transplant Institute
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada

David Rosenthal, M.D.

Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine

Medical Director, PACT Program at Stanford Children’s Health

Roma and Marvin Auerback Pediatric Cardiology Scholar

Richard Chinnock, M.D.

Professor & Chair of Pediatrics

Loma Linda University School of Medicine

Chief Medical Officer

Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital

Loma Linda, CA

Stephanie Nakano, PhD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Advanced Heart Failure / Heart Transplant

University of Colorado and Children’s Hospital Colorado

Our Partners

We are so grateful to our many donors and community and corporate partners who are committed to improving the quality of life for transplant recipients. With their support, we are funding research aimed at building stronger hearts for longer lives. Please visit/learn about them, and consider supporting them as they’ve supported us and our mission!

Enduring Hearts is committed to financial transparency at all times. As a publicly funded charity, it is the fiduciary responsibility of our Officers and Board of Directors to be responsible stewards of your donations and to insure maximum benefit to our stated mission to end the need for repeat heart transplants. To that end, we offer our Audited Financial Statements and Annual IRS Filings for public inspection. We’ve also earned the GuideStar Silver Rating, a testament to Enduring Hearts’ commitment to transparency. Please direct any questions about these filings to treasurer@enduringhearts.org.