Heart Failure and Transplant Immunology
The Cardiology Division has an active basic and clinical research program in the areas of heart failure and transplantation immunology. Clinical heart failure studies, directed by Dr. Edward M. Gilbert, include investigations of cardiac catecholamine metabolism and the effects of a variety of investigational drugs.
At a basic level, abnormalities in excitation-contraction coupling in ventricular myocytes isolated from failing human myocardium and from mouse and rabbit models of heart failure, are carried out by Drs. Sheldon Litwin and William Barry. Myocytes are isolated from animals with experimental hypertrophy and heart failure, and from endomyocardial biopsy specimens and explanted human hearts by enzymatic techniques. Shortening and intracellular calcium transients are measured. Dr. Barry also studies the effects of cytotoxic T lymphocytes on ventricular myocyte survival and function.
Dr. Matthew Movsesian is studying the mechanisms of the inotropic effects of phosphodiesterase and phosphatase inhibitors in failing human myocardium, the interaction of these drugs with an isoenzyme belonging to cGMP-inhibited cAMP phosphodiesterase family, the regulation of the enzyme by phosphorylation and the basis for its association with the sarcoplasmic reticulum.
The Cardiac Transplant Program has several protocols underway in cardiac transplant patients to evaluate new immunosuppressive regimens in the transplanted heart using intravascular ultrasound.
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