It was a pleasure to present face-to-face at the 6th International Conference of Retinoids held June 5-10, at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. The info-packed conference was chaired by Dr. Maureen Kane (U Maryland) and Alex Moise (Northern Ontario School of Medicine). We presented our latest work on the role of cardiac ATRA insufficiency in heart failure. Indeed, Hopkins was well represented, with Laszlo Nagy, Ph.D. who spoke on the role of RXRs in the epigenetic control of macrophage polarization and Keith West, DrPH, who gave a keynote address chronicling his work on the impact of Vitamin A supplementation in Asia…which was interrupted halfway through by an emergency tornado warning! Memorable on many levels.

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.