Molecular science & therapy in heart failure
heart failure, molecular, therapy
Research aim
Current available therapies for chronic heart diseases only alleviate symptoms and prevent the disease from becoming worse. We aim to improve our understanding of heart failure and develop new strategies for therapy.
About us
Heart disease is the main cause of death and accounts for an astounding 31% of all deaths world-wide and often caused by a loss of heart muscle cells, usually because of a heart attack or progressing towards heart failure due to malfunctioning contractile cells. Current therapies, such as lifestyle changes, modern drugs, implanted devices only alleviate symptoms and prevent the disease from becoming worse. Cardiac transplantation is currently the only curative therapy available for end-stage heart failure patients. In our research, we focus on improved molecular and cellular understanding of heart failure development, thereby identifying new mechanisms that could lead to possible interventions. By combining human heart failure specimen in the unravel biobank, different preclinical animal models for heart failure, and advanced human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiovascular cell models, an unique translational pipeline is available for mechanistic studies and possible intervention strategies, including nanomedicine (viral (AAV), lipid nanoparticle (LNP) extracellular vesicle (EV)-inspired delivery strategies.