Project Summary:
Cardiac disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women in Wisconsin, bringing huge emotional and economic impacts to families. Over 16,000 deaths were attributed to cardiovascular disease in Wisconsin in 2017, at an estimated cost of more than $7.5 billion. Myocardial infarction (MI), also known as a heart attack, is the most common form of fatal heart disease in Wisconsin.
Although most patients survive a heart attack, the adult human heart fails to appropriately heal or regenerate, resulting in progressive heart failure. In recent years, the scientific community has made exciting advances in the field of adult heart regeneration, including discovery of a molecular signaling pathway called the Hippo-Yap network that can profoundly stimulate adult heart muscle cells to divide and proliferate. While these findings have clear implications in promoting cardiac healing in adult hearts, how the Hippo-Yap pathway is regulated and whether it can be fine-tuned therapeutically is not comprehensively understood.
Through this award, a collaborative research team aims to understand how the Hippo-Yap pathway can be regulated at a molecular level in the heart, informing therapeutic targets for patients suffering from progressive heart failure. Additional collaborator: Michaela Patterson, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin Cell Biology, Neurobiology, and Anatomy