Mentoring in Arrhythmia Research

房颤是最常见的心律失常，影响着300多万美国人，这个数字是 预计到2050年将增至1200万。房颤是一个主要的公共卫生负担，因为它与五倍于 中风风险增加，痴呆症风险增加一倍，心力衰竭风险增加两倍， 死亡率。房颤的危险因素很多，包括高龄、男性、高血压、 心力衰竭、肥胖和家族史。尽管房颤的社会经济代价高昂，但我们对房颤的理解 心律失常的基本机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。候选人的核心目标是 研究工作是利用遗传学来确定房颤的新基因和新途径。 候选人是一位心脏电生理学家，专注于房颤的研究。他已经发展出 一个孤立性心房颤动患者队列，领导一个国际研究联盟研究 研究房颤的遗传学，并对房颤的机制进行实验室研究。尽管取得了初步的成功 那位候选人在开发心律失常研究项目时，他的临床承诺有限 他接触到了越来越多的他正在指导的研究员。2010年，这位候选人获得了 K24奖，题为《心律失常研究中的指导》，使他能够减少临床时间，专注于 指导他的实习生。这一奖项提供的时间对候选人的研究产生了革命性的影响 计划和他的学术成就。 因此，这次竞争性续签的具体目的是为候选人提供长期支持 使他的临床承诺继续减少，并扩大研究员的研究培训 对房颤和电生理学感兴趣的患者研究。研究人员将拥有 通过MGH房颤研究(AFGen)参与以患者为中心的研究 财团，候选人拥有翻译实验室的工作。这些研究机会将是 与马萨诸塞州综合医院丰富的教育资源相辅相成的是，布罗德 研究所和哈佛大学。最终，我们希望这项建议将有助于 新的临床研究人员在心律失常的研究和加深我们对这种常见和病态的认识 心律不齐。

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and affects over 3 million Americans, a number that is expected to rise to 12 million in 2050. AF is a major public health burden as it is associated with a five-fold increased stroke risk, doubling in dementia risk, tripling in heart failure risk, and nearly two-fold increase in mortality. Many risk factors for AF have been identified, including advancing age, male sex, hypertension, heart failure, obesity and family history. Despite the profound socioeconomic costs of AF, our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms for the arrhythmia remains largely unknown. The central goal of the candidate's research work is to use genetics to identify novel genes and pathways for AF. The candidate is a cardiac electrophysiologist with a research focus on atrial fibrillation. He has developed a cohort of patients with lone atrial fibrillation, leads an international consortium of investigators studying the genetics of atrial fibrillation, and performs laboratory work on the mechanisms of AF. Despite the initial success that candidate has had in developing a program in arrhythmia research, his clinical commitments had limited his exposure to the increasing number of fellows that he was mentoring. In 2010, the candidate received a K24 award entitled “Mentoring in Arrhythmia Research” that enable him to reduce his clinical time and focus on mentoring of his trainees. The time afforded by this award was transformative in the candidate's research program and his academic success. Therefore, the specific aims of this competitive renewal are to provide the candidate long-term support to enable a continued reduction in his clinical commitments, and to expand the research training of fellows interested patient-oriented research in atrial fibrillation and electrophysiology. Research fellows will have ample opportunities to participate in patient-oriented research through in the MGH AF study, the AFGen Consortium, and the candidates own translational laboratory work. These research opportunities will be complemented by the extensive educational resources available at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Broad Institute, and Harvard University. Ultimately, we hope that this proposal will contribute to the development of new clinical investigators in arrhythmia research and to further our understanding of this common and morbid arrhythmia.