Grant: Project Grant

Despite the significant progress in heart disease management and treatment, American Heart Association announced in 2015 that after a decade of decline, death due to cardiovascular diseases is on a rise accounting for 1 out of every 3 deaths in North America. The World Health Organization reports that cardiovascular diseases continue to cause the death of 17 million people each year, with ischemic and hypertensive heart disease as the leading causes of heart failure. We have identified a molecule (ADAM15) that is present in the heart, and its levels are markedly elevated in the diseased heart. But the role of ADAM15 in progression of heart disease has so far been neglected. We have the mouse model to investigate the function of ADAM15 in two common types of human heart diseases, heart attack and dilated (enlarged) hearts. These mouse models will allow us to monitor the role of ADAM15 in progression of heart disease in early and advanced stages of heart disease. Moreover, through collaboration with clinician/scientists (cardiologists/cardiac surgeons) at U of Alberta, we have access to human heart specimens from heart failure patients (who received new healthy hearts, and donated their sick heart to research). We will confirm our findings from mouse models, in the human hearts, and in cells isolated and cultured from these hearts. We have recently purchased a state-of-the-art echo-ultrasound imaging system to measure and monitor the heart function in mice before and after (throughout the progression of) heart disease. Uncovering the function of ADAM15 in heart disease will add one more piece of the puzzle towards getting the full picture of all the factors involved in heart disease. This will be of significant importance in developing novel and effective therapies for heart disease.