(Boston)—Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine (BUCASM) researchers Jessica Fetterman, PhD, FAHA, and Deepa M. Gopal, MD, MS, have received a five-year, $7 million R01 grant from the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to fund their research, “Creation of the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) Cardiovascular Biobank and Atlas.”
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, taking nearly 18 million lives each year. CVDs are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels and include coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, rheumatic heart disease and other conditions. More than four out of five CVD deaths are due to heart attacks and strokes, and one-third of these deaths occur prematurely in people under 70 years of age.
Fetterman and Gopal propose to create a detailed postmortem cardiac and blood vessel tissue repository and cardiovascular tissue-level omics (single-nucleus RNA sequencing) from FHS participants, linked to rich longitudinal phenotypes and circulating genetic data across the lifespan. “This unique FHS resource will advance our understanding of the relation of cardiovascular risk factors with cardiovascular structure and phenotype and enable us to identify new biomarker signatures for CVD in an unprecedented and systematic manner,” explains Fetterman, assistant professor of medicine at the school.
Fetterman is a basic and translational scientist. Her research focus is on understanding the role and mechanisms of mitochondrial genetics and biology in cardiovascular physiology using population-level genetics, induced pluripotent stem cells differentiated to cardiovascular cells, and biobanked human samples. She is an FHS investigator, a Genome Science Institute affiliate and an ancillary member of the Boston Medical Center (BMC)/BU Center for Regenerative Medicine.
Gopal is an assistant professor in the department of medicine in the cardiovascular division at the school and director of Heart Failure Program at BMC. She is a clinician-investigator and advanced heart failure cardiologist with expertise in phenotyping heart failure leveraging exercise testing, echocardiography, and circulating biomarkers. Her research focuses on identifying preclinical biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets in heart failure. She serves on a national committee with the Heart Failure Society of America and leads several heart failure clinical trials at BMC