Professor and Center Director Christopher Hughes receives NIH Tissue Chip Award to develop novel microfluidic platforms for studying various vascular malformations, including hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and port-wine stain. This platform will provide a new tool to help researchers understand, treat and ultimately prevent these often disfiguring — and, all too frequently, fatal — anomalies.  Completion of this project will yield platforms with the potential to transform drug discovery and testing for two rare diseases that currently have very little support from the pharmaceutical industry. Professor Hughes hopes to make significant advances on behalf of HHT and PWS patients.