This award was meant to test efficacy of candidate drugs for calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) in an animal model and in a broader range of patient cells. CAVD is the third most common form of heart disease and despite the over 100,000 valve replacements performed for this disease in the US each year, there is no medical treatment currently. The candidate drugs tested here were discovered using human pluripotent stem cells derived from patients with the disease. We identified one specific drug compound that was very effective in not only restoring the abnormalities typical of the disease process in human cells in a dish, but also was very effective in preventing aortic valve calcification in mice, including preventing aortic valve thickening and narrowing, which is ultimately what requires replacement in patients. This drug will now be developed further as a potential novel therapy for CAVD.