A University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix researcher was recently awarded a $1.9 million National Institutes of Health grant to study the molecular mechanisms of how dilated cardiomyopathy progresses to heart failure, which could eventually lead to better preventive and treatment options for heart failure. Heart failure is inextricably linked with dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM, a disease characterized by the progressive enlargement of the heart and reduced contractility reflected by reduced ejection fraction.
Symptomatic heart failure with reduced ejection is an irreversible condition with an approximately 50% death rate within five years of diagnosis and cardiac transplantation as the only cure. Inna Gladysheva, PhD, a research professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and a member of the Translational Cardiovascular Research Center at the College of Medicine – Phoenix, will use the grant to advance her research into the impact of proteolytic enzymes' networks in the progression of DCM to overt heart failure and examine how the protease-driven impairment of neurohumoral biological pathways impacts this progression. The project aims to elucidate the regulatory role of the upstream proteolytic network in renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system overactivation and the pathophysiology of heart failure, ultimately leading to better treatment options than solely full heart transplantation.
"Our exciting discovery suggests and offers a new paradigm in heart fail.
