Projects
Prevention of heart failure in type 2 diabetes by exercise intervention KU Leuven
Cardiac dysfunction is highly prevalent in type 2 diabetes (T2DM), leading to adverse cardiac events and premature death. In the last few years the global longitudinal strain (GLS, which can be assessed during echocardiography) was found to predict this diabetes-induced heart failure (DIHF) years ahead in T2DM patients. We have now recently shown that GLS indeed is disturbed even in well-controlled and symptom-free T2DM patients: a disturbed ...
Loss of cardiac resident macrophage self-renewal as a trigger for Heart Failure with preserved Ejection Fraction. KU Leuven
Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) is a pathology with few current therapeutic options that are further diminished as HFpEF is mostly diagnosed at a late stage. At a cellular level, vascular dysfunction, fibrosis, and an increased inflammatory response are known HFpEF characteristics, but no consensus has been researched concerning underlying mechanisms. The cardioprotective function of resident cardiac macrophages is an ...
MacroERA: non-coding RNA modulate macrophage function during heart failure. KU Leuven
Current heart failure therapy primarily addresses cardiac myocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells. The narrow focus on these two cell types neglects accumulating evidence that also other cardiac cell types – endothelial cells, fibroblasts and immune cells – impact on cardiac homeostasis, disease development and manifestation. Although macrophages are the largest fraction of immune cells in native mammalian myocardium, their roles in this ...
Determination of the effects of insulin resistance, atherosclerosis and cardiac hypertrophy on heart failure in mice. KU Leuven
CONNEXIN-43 HEMICHANNELS AS PRO-ARRHYTHMIC MEDIATORS IN CARDIAC HYPERTROPHY AND HEART FAILURE Ghent University
Connexins are crucial proteins in the heart that facilitate impulse conduction over the cardiac tissue thereby coordinating the atrioventricular contraction cycle in a spatiotemporal manner. Connexins form hemichannels that assemble as gap junctions and directly connect cardiomyocytes as well as cells of specialized conduction tissues. Hemichannels not only combine to form gap junctions but are also present as free membrane channels not being ...
Understanding the Effects of Heart Failure Treatments on Cancer Growth. University of Antwerp
Small-Molecule ERBB4 Agonists to Treat Heart Failure University of Antwerp
Underlying mechanisms of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. KU Leuven
Every year 3.6 million patients are diagnosed with heart failure (HF) in Europe resulting in a socioeconomic burden of billions of Euros per year. As a consequence of our aging society as well as an improved survival of patients with cardiac morbidities, such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension and the metabolic syndrome (MetS), the incidence of HF is expected to increase by 50% in 2030. More than half of these HF patients have HF with ...