Faculty Spotlight: Making a Difference in Pediatric Heart Failure with Jonathan Edwards, MD

Editor’s Note: Meet the diverse, dedicated, and distinctive faculty who are discovering and developing pediatric life-changing solutions at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute, in our monthly Faculty Spotlight series. This year, we're learning about the unique hobbies of our faculty that help them unwind and relax after working hard to improve pediatric health and care. In this Q&A, we meet Jonathan Edwards, MD, an attending physician in the Division of Cardiology. Stay tuned for more from our Faculty Spotlight series throughout the year.

Why did you choose to focus on your research specialty?

My research interest was born out of my clinical experiences. I was first drawn to pediatric cardiology when I was in college and reflecting on my excitement for cardiac embryology and cardiovascular physiology, volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club, and shadowing a pediatric cardiologist. Now, I serve as an attending physician for the Heart Failure and Transplant Program.

I didn’t develop an interest in this subspecialty until I was a fellow, and I recognized the challenge our field faces in caring for children with right ventricular failure. To date, there are no proven therapies that can reverse right ventricular failure, and this population has grown over time, especially for children with single ventricle congenital heart diseases.

For me, recognizing the potential to move our field forward by studying right ventricular failure sparked an indelible enthusiasm to continue down the path of a physician-scientist.

Can you tell us about current or recent research projects that you are excited about?

Our lab is small but mighty. We have many active projects looking at multiple areas of biology. When I was a postdoctoral fellow, I identified ROR2, a cell surface receptor, as a candidate target for right ventricular failure. Our preliminary work revealed a previously unknown role for ROR2 in affecting how cardiomyocytes balance protein production and turnover, a process termed “proteostasis”. We have several other targets in the works that we identified using adult right ventricular failure biospecimens.

We also launched the Pediatric Heart Analytical Biobank as part of our Frontier Program: Advanced Cardiac Therapies for Heart Failure. Through this biobank, we’ve been able to evaluate, in real time, differences in cardiomyocyte contractility and cardiac metabolism, and are now poised to perform searches for pediatric-specific heart failure targets.

What are the long-term research questions you hope to answer?

How can you make a failing cardiomyocyte a functional cardiomyocyte? What are the processes that occur during right ventricular failure that are adaptive, and therefore could be therapeutically targeted by enhancement? Conversely, what changes are truly pathologic and could be inhibited to prevent or reverse right ventricular failure?

What do you enjoy doing in your free time when you’re not working on research?

I enjoy spending time with my wife, Coral, and my two kids, Joseph (“Jojo”) who is 6, and Olive who is 3. I’m slowly convincing them all to enjoy watching football with me.

For our vacations, we tend to visit the beach or the mountains. After talking about it for years, Coral convinced me to take a surfing lesson for my birthday this year. Surfing is a truly humbling sport, but I’m always in awe on the occasions that I successfully ride a wave! I also picked up running in the last couple of years, usually along the Schuylkill River trail.

How do you balance your research work with your personal interests?

I think this is one of the biggest challenges, to feel as though I am succeeding in all facets of my life. I have an incredibly supportive family, and I cannot imagine doing this without them. I think healthy incorporation of self-care is the best way for this type of career to be sustainable.