Cardiovascular Disease Biology

Cardiac hypertrophy is the first and foremost element in cardiac remodeling that occurs due to sustained hemodynamic load imposed by hypertension. In 2019, hypertensive heart disease was the main cause of 1.16 million deaths globally (Roth et al., 2020). Hypertrophy is an adaptive response of the heart which is characterized by an increase in wall thickness of the left ventricle. Even though an initial adaptive response to sustain cardiac output, hypertrophy leads to heart failure in the long run. Since therapeutic options for cardiac failure are limited, it is appropriate to prevent the progression of hypertrophy to failure. Being a societal challenge, the projects are aimed to deliver possible solutions to address the issue. Preliminary work carried out by the PI indicates that efforts to target autophagy will be a logical approach in the treatment of cardiac hypertrophy.