Indian-American gets NIH grant for heart disease research

An Indian-American biomedical researcher in a US university has received USD 423,485 grant from National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world's foremost medical research centres, for his research in the field of ischemic heart disease.
Through the grant, Krishna Singh, professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in East Tennessee State University's Quillen College of Medicine and physiologist at the Quillen VA Medical Centre, will research the role of a protein called ATM or ataxia telangiectasia mutated kinase, in ischemic heart disease.
Mutations in the ATM gene cause a rare genetic disorder known as Ataxia-telangiectasia or A-T, which affects multiple organs in the body and leads to severe disability.

Individuals carrying both copies of the mutated ATM gene die in their teens or early 20s. Patients with one normal and one mutated copy of the ATM gene are spared from most of the symptoms of the disease. However, they are more susceptible to cancer and ischemic heart disease.
"The aim of this research is to identify a link between ATM and ischemic heart disease, and to understand why ATM deficient patients are more susceptible to ischemic heart disease," Singh was quoted as saying by johnsoncitypress.Com.
"Loss of heart muscle cells during heart attack compromises the normal functioning of the heart," she said.

The investigations will be focused on examining the role of ATM in heart muscle cell death and heart function.

Singh also currently holds a VA Merit Review Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs for nearly USD 1 million to study the role of a protein called osteopontin in heart disease.
The NIH is one of the world's foremost medical research centres and the United States Federal Government's focal point for medical research.
NIH is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world, creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality jobs by funding thousands of scientists in universities and research institutions in every state across America and around the globe.