OTTAWA, July 25, 2024 — The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has announced the recipients of its Spring 2024 Project Grant Program. Dr. Kyoung-Han Kim, a scientist and director of the Functional Genetics and Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) will receive nearly a million dollars to create a detailed cellular and genetic map of the heart to develop better therapeutics for treating patients with heart disease.
“Our goal is to create a detailed cellular and genetic map of the heart that will aid in the development of precise therapeutic methods to treat heart disease.”
- Dr. Kyoung-Han Kim, UOHI
Project details
- Principal investigator: Kyoung-Han Kim, PhD
- Project (lay title): Understanding the regional differences within the ventricular muscle in the normal and diseased heart
- Amount: $967,726 over five years
“In this proposed study, we will employ multi-disciplinary approaches to uncover how genetic and molecular patterns present in ventricular heart muscle are constructed and regulated,” said Dr. Kyoung-Han Kim. “Our goal is to create a detailed cellular and genetic map of the heart that will aid in the development of precise therapeutic methods to treat heart disease.”
The left ventricle of the human heart is composed of cardiac muscle which generates a major contractile force needed for pumping blood throughout the body. However, the ventricular muscle varies in its functional and molecular characteristics, often exhibiting a gradient of genetic and molecular patterns across the wall of the heart muscle. These patterns are critical to ensure balanced rhythm, contraction, and relaxation of the heart. When these are altered in diseased hearts, individuals are more susceptible to arrhythmias and abnormal structural changes in the heart. However, understanding of the molecular system underlying these gradient patterns in the ventricular muscle is relatively limited.
About the program
The CIHR’s Project Grant Program is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related fundamental or applied knowledge, health research, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes. It supports projects or programs of research proposed and conducted by individual researchers or groups of researchers in all areas of health. The best ideas may stem from new, incremental, innovative, and/or high-risk lines of inquiry, or knowledge translation approaches.
Congratulations Dr. Kim!
For more about the Project Grant Program and the projects receiving funding, please visit the CIHR Project Grant website.
Additional information
The University of Ottawa Heart Institute stands as one of Canada’s most distinguished heart health centres for the unparalleled care it provides to its patients, a world-renowned research institute that brings science from bench to bedside, and the country’s main influencer when it comes to preventing heart disease. Its promise remains the very pillar on which it was built: Always putting patients first.
Media contact
Leigh B. Morris
Communications Officer
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
613-316-6409 (cell)
@email