DENVER (Sept. 28, 2006) – A cardiovascular researcher at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center’s School of Medicine is part of a team awarded a $6 million research grant from the Fondation Leducq in France. The team of recipients was selected out of an international pool and has earned worldwide attention in the field of cardiovascular research.
Michael Bristow, MD, PhD, is co-director of the Cardiovascular Institute at UCDHSC and worked on the team of three American and three European researchers that won the $6 million grant. Each researcher represented one of the top six laboratories in the world in the area of heart failure. Their team was one of four selected internationally for the Fondation Leducq’s Transatlantic Networks of Excellence Program.
Richard D. Krugman, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, applauded the accomplishment. “I am delighted to hear of this recognition and am pleased for Dr. Bristow and his research team. It is clear that the work of our faculty at the School of Medicine in Colorado has impact well beyond our geographic limits.”
The Fondation Leducq is a Paris-based organization focused on international collaboration in cardiovascular research. Bristow cites his team of researchers as “an example of Europeans and Americans working towards the greater good, looking to discover new causes of heart failure and potentially new treatments.”
Bristow’s collaborators are Rodolphe Fischmeister, PhD, Université Paris-Sud, John Scott, PhD, Oregon Health Sciences University, Marco Conti, MD, Stanford University, Emilio Hirsch, PhD, University of Torino, and Miles Houslay, PhD, University of Glasgow.
The research proposal that won the grant focuses upon therapeutic treatments involving the nucleotide cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). In heart cells, cAMP regulates the flow of calcium, the production of proteins, and the contraction of the cell. Its actions are triggered by hormones and other signals in the blood. Different signals will prompt different responses by the cAMP cell.
The researchers found that, in failed hearts, the different signals are compartmentalized, or moved into specific spatial locations within the heart cell. Therefore, cAMP in one part of the cell may behave differently than the same molecule produced in another part of the cell. The researchers believe that this compartmentalization explains the varied effects of heart failure treatments which rely upon the modulation of cAMP.
While this discovery marks an important first step, Bristow indicates that there is still much work to be done. “We need to discover in more detail what the precise pathophysiology is, and this grant will do that,” Bristow said. In the coming years, Bristow hopes to target cAMP at the sub-cellular level and develop treatments to correct this abnormal condition.
Funding will begin on Oct. 1 and continue for five years.
The School of Medicine faculty work to advance science and improve care as the physicians, educators and scientists at University of Colorado Hospital, The Children’s Hospital, Denver Health, National Jewish Medical and Research Center and the Veterans Administration Medical Center. The School is part of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. For more information, visit the Web site at www.uchsc.edu or the UCDHSC Newsroom at http://www.uchsc.edu/news.