American Heart Association
The nation's oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke.
American Heart Association – About UsThe American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit health organization founded in 1924 by six cardiologists and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Its mission is to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives, with work spanning five key areas: research, heart and brain health, equitable health, advocacy, and professional education and development. The American Stroke Association operates as a division of the AHA, created in 1997 to consolidate stroke-related activities.
The AHA operates at significant scale, with more than 35 million volunteers and supporters, over 3,300 employees, and 156 local offices across the United States. It has invested more than $6 billion in research, making it the largest non-profit, non-governmental funder of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular research. The organization publishes fourteen scientific journals, including Circulation and Stroke, and its funded research has contributed to CPR training, bypass surgery, pacemakers, and other medical advances.
Financially, the AHA reported approximately $925.8 million in revenue and $1.25 billion in net assets on its most recent IRS Form 990, with total revenues across all components reaching approximately $1.3 billion. Since its founding, deaths from cardiovascular diseases have been cut in half. Innovations in cardiovascular health science, policy, care delivery, and health equity are directly relevant to the AHA's core research and programmatic mission.
Ideas that could help American Heart Association
- SalivaScore: Oral Nitrate-Reduction Microbiome Test
A saliva-based diagnostic that quantifies the abundance of key nitrate-reducing bacteria in the mouth, giving users a personalized
Why it helps: AHA actively promotes dietary nitrate (vegetable-rich diets) for hypertension management; validating this test could become part of their dietary guidance and public health campaigns.
- Dimethylarginine + Trimethyllysine Cardiovascular Risk Biomarker Test
A plasma assay measuring both dimethylarginine and trimethyllysine together as a readout of SLC25A45 mitochondrial function, providing a richer cardiovascular and renal risk signal than ADMA alone.
Why it helps: Would benefit from a mechanistically grounded methylated amino acid risk panel that could be incorporated into updated cardiovascular risk guidelines and drive awareness funding.