In an opening plenary session at this year's conference of the Heart Failure Society of America (St. Paul, Minnesota), Gale Pearson, of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, laid out what she called a "roadmap" and a "blueprint" developed by the NHLBI to provide "global leadership" and a "strategic planning process" as an "optimal heart failure research catalyst."