Dr. Christopher Adams, first year Cardiology fellow, Marshall University, School of Medicine, Huntington WV, presented and won the top prize for the best poster presentation in both regional and national conferences held by the American College of Cardiology for his work on "Perivascular Fat Biomarkers and Corresponding Echocardiographic Evidence: WV‐Appalachian Heart Study".

He was one of only twelve Cardiology clinical fellows from all the universities in the United States who was selected to present his work to the Board of Governors of the American College of Cardiology conference, held in Las Vegas, NV in February 2012. Dr. Nalini Santanam, Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Toxicology, Marshall University School of Medicine was the PI of this project. The other investigators of this study included Dr. Todd Gress (Department of Internal Medicine), Dr. Paulette Wehner (Department of Cardiology) and Dr. Nepal Chowdhury (Department of Thoracic Surgery) at MUSOM. This study was supported by the supplemental funds from NIH funded WV-INBRE.