Tuesday 30 May, 12:00 - 1:00pm, Seminar Room 1, TRF BuildingA/Prof Rebecca Ritchie
Head of Heart Failure Pharmacology, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute
The increasing global prevalence of and our aging population has given rise to an epidemic of heart failure. Up to one-third of patients in clinical heart failure trials are diabetic, and diabetes is an independent predictor of poor outcome. Despite the higher rate of heart failure in these patients, no specific treatment for heart failure exists for T2D patients. We and others have implicated elevated oxidative stress and cardiac generation of the ROS superoxide as likely contributors to this ‘diabetic cardiomyopathy’. More recently, we have identified novel mechanisms for limiting diabetes-associated cardiomyopathy, many of which specifically target the myocardium. Ultimately therapies based on these could pave the way for the development of much-needed, novel therapies that are specific for diabetic heart failure.