Cardiovascular and metabolic research group

 

Members

Projects

• Studies on the role of extracellular vesicles
  • Studying the role of EVs in cardioprotective interventions
  • Studying the role of EVs in metabolic co-morbidities of cardiac diseases
  • Studying the role of EVs in ischemic conditioning
• Studies on the mechanisms and therapies of the cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury
  • Effects of pharmacons on cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury: hidden cardiotoxicity
  • Effect of metabolic comorbidities (diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, etc.) on cardioprotective interventions against ischemia/reperfusion injury
• Identification of cardioprotective targets in ischemic heart disease and its comorbidities
  • Investigation of the role of neuropeptides in cardioprotection in in vitro and in vivo systems
  • Identification of drug targets for ischemic heart disease with bioinformatic target prediction followed by experimental validaton of predicted targets
• Utilization and development of network theoretical and bioinformatics methodologies in the research of cardiovascular diseases and pharmacovigilance
  • Unbiased network theoretic microRNA interactome analysis for the prediction of most probable targets of differentially expressed microRNAs in cardiovascular diseases
  • Applying network theory models on adverse drug event datasets in order to identify novel cardiovascular effects of marketed drugs
• Identification of cardioprotective mikroRNAs and their utilization in the treatment of acute ischemia in small and large animal models

MicroRNAs (20-15 base-long non-coding RNAs) are crucial for numerous biological and pathological processes. In ischemia expression of several miRNAs are altered (e.g. miRNA-21), and thus the protein expression pattern of the heart is thoroughly influenced. Previously we found that overexpression (microRNA-139-5p, microRNA-125b*) or suppression (microRNA-487b) of certain miRNAs induce cardioprotection in isolated cardiomyocytes. Therefore, it is plausible that other miRNAs might also play a role in various forms of cardioprotection. In these investigations we will identify miRNAs that are involved in clinically relevant cardioprotective interventions (e.g. ishcemic postconditioning or remote ischemic perconditioning) in rodent and large animal models of acute ischemia/reperfusion injury. Furthermore, based on our findings we will develop a novel therapeutic strategy that involves miRNA-modulation.