Focused On The Root Causes Of Cardiac Inflammation

Focused On The Root Causes Of Cardiac Inflammation

In search of individualized heart failure therapies, Ganesh Halade leads a USF Health Heart Institute team studying unresolved inflammation after heart attack.

Short-term inflammation is one of the body’s key defense mechanisms to help repair injury and fight infection. But low-level inflammation that does not subside has been linked to many common chronic conditions, including cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

Ganesh Halade, PhD, an associate professor of cardiovascular sciences at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, investigates the safe clearance of acute inflammation – and what happens at the molecular and cellular levels when initially beneficial inflammation becomes harmful to the heart.  His team at the USF Health Heart Institute works on bridging the gap between the immune-responsive metabolism of fat and cardiac health by more clearly defining two distinct but simultaneous processes: the inflammatory response and how inflammation is safely cleared, or resolved.

In particular, Dr. Halade’s laboratory focuses on discovering ways to prevent, delay or treat the unresolved inflammation after a heart attack, which plays a key role in the pathology leading to heart failure. Their goal is to contribute to individualized therapies that may account for possible sex, racial/ethnic or age-related physiological differences in heart failure, a leading cause of hospitalizations and deaths worldwide.

READ MORE HERE.  — Written by Anne DeLotto Baier · September 30, 2020