Loyola researcher receives $1.3 million NIH grant to study key heart protein

Loyola University Health System researcher Sakthivel Sadayappan, PhD, has been awarded a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a protein that is critical for the normal functioning of the heart.

The protein is called cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C). Sadayappan's lab has shown that during a heart attack, the protein breaks into pieces, and this fragmentation coincides with damage to the heart muscle that leads to heart failure.

The grant will fund further research into what happens to cMyBP-C during a heart attack. This could lead to the development of drugs to protect cMyBP-C following a heart attack, and thereby limit damage to heart muscle, Sadayappan said.

The 40th anniversary of the discovery of cMyBP-C is coming up in 2011, and scientists still have much to learn about the function of this protein in the heart. The work by Sadayappan's lab could lead to new therapies to improve muscle function in heart failure patients.

"Our long-term goal is to delineate the roles of cMyBP-C protein function in the heart," Dr. Sadayappan said.