After years of effort, investigators at Vanderbilt and Columbia found the gene for heritable pulmonary hypertension (PH) nearly simultaneously in the year 2000. Mutations in the so-called bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) are now known to be responsible for about 75% of cases of heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In the other 25% of families, either the mutation r...
