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Edwards Laboratory for Pediatric Heart Failure Research Overview
Below are some highlights of research in the Edwards Lab.
Our mission and work are supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Cardiac Therapies for Heart Failure Frontier Program, and the Cardiac Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The fetal noncanonical WNT receptor ROR2 is strongly reactivated in the right ventrical of patients with severe right venctricular failure (RVF), and in animals models with RVF from pressure overload. Our data demonstrate that ROR2 is a novel regulator of cardiomyocyte proteostasis, and that its re-expression in RVF is associated with increased protein clearance.
We recently found that the Cofilin/Profilin actin remodeling pathway is transcriptionally dysregulated in a right ventricular-specific manner in heart failure. We are currently studying how actin remodeling may be uniquely compromised for the challenged right ventricle.
We are characterizing the molecular impact of fetal hypoxia on myocardial development through a joint collaboration with the Gaynor and Flake labs at CHOP using the EXTrauterine Environment for Neonatal Development system.
We are undertaking a multi-omic approach to characterize molecular signatures of adaptive and pathologic right ventricular remodeling in collaboration with the Margulies Lab at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Edwards Lab directs the Pediatric Heart Analytical Biobank which collects failing pediatric heart biospecimens to provide a platform for mechanistic discovery using a multi-omic molecular analysis.