The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) announced this year’s winners of its “Lendület” (Momentum) excellence program on Thursday, where Semmelweis University’s Dr. Pál Maurovich-Horvat, an associate professor at the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center Department of Cardiology – Heart Center, was awarded funding.
In his research work, Dr. Pál Maurovich-Horvat conducts personalized risk assessment by the comprehensive phenotyping of coronary disease. The main objective of the working group is to make a precise, personally tailored projection for myocardial infarction, through precision medicine by the combined use of modern imaging technologies and blood-based biomarkers, the MTA said on its website in describing the research topic of the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center’s associate professor.
Dr. Pál Maurovich-Horvat previously also won funding at the 2013 Momentum program; the current research program is built upon the working group’s achievements of the past five years, and can be considered a continuation of the previous research. The research program is comprised of three parts. The plan is to study patients sent to the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center for cardiac CTs, those on the heart transplant waiting list, and those that have suffered acute myocardial infarctions. Based on the results of the three phases, and through the combined analysis of images and biomarkers, they plan to develop a new type of personalized risk assessment process, which could form the basis for establishing precision medicine in this field of cardiology.
In 2019, 16 new research teams can be established under the leadership of highly talented young researchers, announced Ádám Török, the secretary-general of MTA. The winners, who were selected from a field of 116 applicants, will receive combined funding of HUF 540 million for the current year. Of the new research teams, five will conduct their work at research centers or institutes of the Academy, while 11 will carry out their research at universities. The full list of winners for this year’s Momentum program can be found on the MTA website.
The MTA first announced the Momentum excellence program for young researchers in 2009.
Translation: Tamás Deme
Source: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MTI
Photo: Attila Kovács – Semmelweis University; Tamás Szigeti – MTA
