Thomas Vondriska
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Physiology
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) affects about 3 million Americans and is driven by obesity and high blood pressure. In HFpEF, the heart still pumps out a normal share of blood but becomes stiff and fills poorly.
- Fields
Physiology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
heart failure with preserved ejection fraction
HFpEF
diastolic dysfunction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2029
What they work on
- Map gene activity, chromatin accessibility and histone modifications in heart, kidney and liver of ZSF1 rats as HFpEF develops, building the first multi-organ epigenomic atlases of the disease.
- Determine how empagliflozin (an SGLT2 inhibitor) and semaglutide (a GLP1 agonist) reshape chromatin and gene expression across organs in the ZSF1 rat model of HFpEF.
- Identify transcription factors and chromatin remodelers driving multi-organ dysfunction, and use PharmOmics to prioritize targets and drugs that could be repurposed.
- Test whether raising or depleting histone H1.0, a DNA-packaging protein that promotes scarring, with AAV9 gene delivery changes fibrosis, organ function and exercise capacity in ZSF1 rats.
More about the research
The disease reaches well beyond the heart, causing fluid in the lungs, weak skeletal muscle, liver stress and fluid retention by the kidneys. New drugs such as SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP1 agonists help, and they act on many organs. Yet no one knows how gene control across organs changes as HFpEF develops.
Why it matters
Millions of people live with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, a disease that strains the heart, kidneys, liver and muscle and has few treatments. By explaining how drugs such as empagliflozin and semaglutide act across organs, this work could guide their use. It could also identify new targets, such as lowering histone H1.0 to reduce scarring, or existing drugs that could be repurposed for HFpEF.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Stefano Morotti
University of California-Davis, CA·Physiology
Identify key molecular and cellular changes in excitation-contraction coupling, the link between electrical signals and heartbeats, in a mouse model of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), using functional and transcriptomic data.
Tammy Kindel
Medical College of Wisconsin, WI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether the gut microbiome after sleeve gastrectomy raises blood bile acids that activate FXR, a bile-acid sensor, using fecal transfer from operated mice and metagenomic sequencing of rodent and human stool.
Oguz Akbilgic
Wake Forest University, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Develop an AI model that predicts future heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) from ECG data, using carefully verified data from NIH-funded studies.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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