Dr Deepak Srivastava’s – director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease – team’s foray into cardiovascular genetics is aimed at discovering what gene mutations, single or multiple, evident or subtle, cause human cardiac disease. This research relies heavily on the array of tools for genomic analysis made available by the Human Genome Project. They also aim to be able to identify people at risk for such cardiac diseases. As an example, Dr Srivastava’s team has discovered mutations in a critical developmental gene that cause calcification of heart valves in rare families.
In another exciting discovery published in the journal Nature (November 2004 issue), Dr Srivastava and his colleagues discovered that thymosin ß4 (Tß4), a naturally occurring protein that is active in the developing heart, considerably enhances cardiac repair in mice if administered immediately after a coronary artery is obstructed. Apparently, Tß4 activates a protein Akt, which in turn renders heart muscles resistant to damage from oxygen deprivation. Bearing in mind the huge number of people worldwide who suffer from coronary artery disease, estimated at 13 million in USA alone, this finding holds an immense clinical significance. The fact that Tß4 prevents cardiac cell death by inducing them to a state of hibernation holds much promise for the further development of cardiac therapy.
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