A new approach to decode gene-based mechanisms and advance therapeutic options for cardiovascular disease and other aging-related disorders

This project aims to evaluate a gene transfer-based therapeutic approach for aging and aging-associated health conditions, focusing first on aging-related cardiac dysfunction – a major and growing cause of illness and death among older individuals. This translationally-oriented work leverages mouse and human systems to test the association of gene-level and expression-level differences in a key regulator of cellular calcium handling, energy production, protein quality control and survival variation in determining overall risk of cardiovascular and other aging-related diseases and to test whether rescuing this regulator can rescue cardiac function in a preclinical mouse model of human heart failure. This work holds exciting potential for discovering novel therapies for heart failure in humans and for accelerating the discovery, translation and clinical application of aging-relevant therapeutics across a broad spectrum of targets and conditions.