MMRI Research Continues to be Backed by American Heart Association

MMRI Research Continues to be Backed by American Heart Association
The Association granted MMRI two new awards totaling $273,432 for cardiovascular research

The American Heart Association is a valued supporter of MMRI. Within the last year, the Association awarded significant funding to MMRI’s innovative research into the nation’s leading cause of death, cardiovascular disease. This brings the Association’s total grant support of MMRI to $377,200.

The Innovative Project Award (IPA) for $200,000 was awarded to Principal Investigator, Nathan Tucker, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical research and translational medicine at MMRI. The two-year award will allow Dr. Tucker and his research team to focus on the strong impact that genetics have on the risk of severe cardiovascular disease (CVD). Positive CVD outcomes are directly linked to early diagnosis and genetic screening is more regularly being integrated into everyday clinical care. However, current measures to identify genetic CVD risks early in patients are lacking and typically rely on clinical tests that may not be accurately interpreted.

“It’s very clear that the future of clinical care in cardiovascular disease will include genetics as well as traditional clinical measures, such as cholesterol or blood pressure,” said Dr. Tucker. “However, our understanding of how genetics impact risk is still in early days. The goal of this project is to lead the way in understanding the impact of genetic changes in a gene with a strong link to a very severe cardiovascular condition, called dilated cardiomyopathy.”

The Transformational Project Award for $73,432 was awarded to Maria Kontaridis, Ph.D., executive director, Gordon K. Moe professor and chair of biomedical and translational medicine at MMRI, for her collaborative research project titled, Atrial Remodeling Precedes Ventricular Dysfunction in Proteoxic Cardiac Disease. The Principal Investigator for the project is Rajasekaran Namakkal-Soorappan, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and cellular pathology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama. The three-year award will allow Dr. Kontaridis and her team to study arrythmias. Specifically, she and her team will research the impact of damaged proteins on the structure and electrical signaling of the heart.

“Our hope is to determine whether improving the control of protein quality can maintain the normal structure and electrical function of the heart,” said Dr. Kontaridis. “The funding provided by the America Heart Association will allow me and my team to make significant strides forward in this imperative research. All of us at MMRI are extremely grateful for the American Heart Association’s generous support.”