Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Unlocking the secretsof heart functionHeart failure, not to be confused with a heart attack, happenswhen a person’s heart can no longer supply enough bloodfl ow to meet the body’s needs. According to Dr Catalucci, thecondition affects more people than you would expect in Westernsocieties – between 5 and 10 people in 1 000 experience heartfailure every year.Often attributed to lifestyle and diet, heart failure affects adisturbingly high number of people over the age of 50 andis the leading cause of hospitalisation for this age group. It istherefore regarded as placing a heavy burden on the healthcaresystems of Europe and the United States and, accordingly, alot of time and money has been put into researching its causes.In past decades, thousands of peer-reviewed studies of thecondition have shown that heart failure is not brought on by asingle mechanism, lifestyle factor or sequence of events. At themoment, the understanding is that something triggers a chainof events that makes the chambers of the heart lose their abilityto pump blood effi ciently. The body then tries to compensate,increasing the actual size of the heart; this temporarily restoresthe heart’s function. But while this enlargement gets the bloodmoving again, in the long run it causes secondary heart damage.Dr Catalucci and his lab are trying to answer questions aboutwhat happens at a molecular level between the triggering eventand heart enlargement (called the ‘asymptomatic’ phase), andthe secondary damage that leads directly to heart failure (calledthe ‘symptomatic’ phase). His hope is that understanding themolecular mechanisms involved in these transitions will providekey knowledge that may unlock new, more effective therapiesthan heart transplant. At the moment, getting a new heart isthe only viable treatment for heart failure.Pathways of discoveryThe molecular mechanisms behind the heart’s function arecontrolled by signalling pathways. In a signalling pathway,Fluorescent image of a section through an adult mouse heart113