A heart disease breakthrough

October 18, 2022 

Donor gifts truly open doors in medical research.

A St. Boniface Hospital Research lab is the first to discover and demonstrate the critical role of the protein scleraxis in regulating a condition that currently lacks any treatment.

Earlier this month the European Heart Journal published the study, which shows how scleraxis is an important new factor in therapeutic targeting for cardiac fibrosis, a condition that stiffens the walls of the heart. 

Cardiac fibrosis affects millions of people worldwide, contributing to arrhythmias, heart failure, and death. It can develop following high blood pressure, heart attacks, diabetes and/or valve disorders. While it can be monitored through medical imaging, no viable therapeutics to halt or reverse the condition are currently available. 

For more than a decade, however, the lab of Dr. Michael Czubryt has been building a case that scleraxis is vitally important to the heart.  

Dr. Czubryt is a Principal Investigator in the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences at St. Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre, and Professor of Physiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Manitoba. 

This research and the resulting paper were a collaborative effort including graduate students and fellow Principal Investigators at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences. 

Learn more about this heart disease breakthrough (English only): http://www.sbrc.ca/2022/10/a-new-target-for-treating-heart-disease/


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