Peter Leary
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research
The right side of the heart is thin-walled and built to pump against low pressure. In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), pressure in the lung arteries climbs, the right ventricle has to work against that load, and eventually it fails; right heart failure is what kills most patients.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Biochemistry
- Topics
pulmonary arterial hypertension
right heart failure
right ventricle
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- Test in a Phase 2, single-center, randomized placebo-controlled trial whether 24 weeks of valsartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker, is safe and improves six-minute walk distance in adults with pulmonary arterial hypertension.
- Evaluate whether valsartan changes right ventricular function, the heart failure blood marker NT-proBNP, functional class, disease-specific quality of life on the emPHasis-10 instrument, and how often standard PAH therapy must be escalated.
- Profile baseline and 24-week blood samples from REVAMP-PH participants with longitudinal multi-omics and extracellular vesicle characterization to define how renin-angiotensin-aldosterone blockade influences right heart failure.
- Build a platform of time-varying molecular signals by integrating REVAMP-PH data with the REHAB-PH and Servetus longitudinal PAH cohorts, to define the dynamics of right ventricular vulnerability and adaptation.
- Identify candidate targetable pathways sustaining right ventricular failure, including extracellular matrix and polyamine metabolism signals, by linking molecular profiles to discrete clinical phenotypes.
More about the research
Every approved PAH drug works by lowering the pressure the heart pumps against, and none is known to help the right ventricle cope on its own. The same problem shows up in emphysema, interstitial lung disease and left heart failure. Two linked projects address this gap: a randomized trial testing whether an inexpensive, widely used blood pressure drug protects the right heart, and a molecular study of blood samples from that trial to learn why some right ventricles adapt and others do not.
Why it matters
Right heart failure drives death and disability in pulmonary arterial hypertension and complicates emphysema, interstitial lung disease and left heart failure, yet no therapy is known to help the right ventricle adapt. If valsartan proves effective, it would repurpose an inexpensive, well-tolerated drug for patients facing very costly PAH regimens. The molecular profiling may reveal targetable pathways underlying right ventricular vulnerability that could seed future therapies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sasha Prisco
University of Minnesota, MN·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Determine whether Lactobacillus supplementation reduces harmful microtubule remodeling and improves right ventricular function in monocrotaline and Sugen-hypoxia rodent models of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Soban Umar
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how the Snai1–LOXL2–CTGF axis drives endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, where vessel-lining cells become scar-forming cells, in right ventricles of PH rats and in human coronary artery endothelial cells.
Malamo Countouris
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test in a randomized trial whether an angiotensin receptor blocker-neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) lowers left ventricular mass index more than an angiotensin receptor blocker alone in women with prior preeclampsia and current hypertension.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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