Award from the Saving Tiny Hearts Society.
We are honored to have been awarded a 1-year grant from the Saving Tiny Hearts Society to initiate studies of the enzymes that underlie the metabolism in the human heart. The premise of the work is that notwithstanding advances in pediatric cardiac surgery, children born with CHD remain at risk of developing HF throughout their development to adulthood and beyond. We submit that proper retinoid metabolism and signaling is key to both human heart development and post-natal heart health, yet the enzymes responsible for the metabolism of retinol to retinoic acid in the human heart are largely unknown. This represents a fundamental knowledge gap in cardiac biology. We believe that identifying these enzymes represents a crucial first step toward the design of therapies to preserve cardiac ATRA homeostasis.