The Vascular Medicine Institute at the University of Pittsburgh (VMI) was founded in 2008 with the support of the Institute for Transfusion Medicine and the Hemophilia Center of Western Pennsylvania. It is part of the Department of Medicine in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Each of the multidisciplinary team of scientists have appointments in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, the Division of Hematology/Oncology, the Division of Cardiology, the Department of Pharmacology & Chemical Biology, and the Department of Pathology. In 2013, the VMI expanded into cardiovascular medicine, partnering with the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute to create the Pittsburgh Heart, Lung and Blood Vascular Medicine Institute.

The mission of VMI is to perform rigorous, cutting edge basic and translational research in vascular biology, guided by a systems biology view of the vasculature, where blood flow is regulated by the vessel, circulating molecules and blood cells. The research is driven by scientists with expertise in hemostasis, red blood cell biophysics, transfusion medicine, cardiovascular biology, mitochondrial biology, and nitrite-nitric oxide-reactive oxygen species biochemistry and signaling. Training the next generation of scientists in bench-to-bedside translational research is very important to the mission.