Medicine
Participation in newly launched SFB 1116:
Keeping the heart safe from attack
How can the heart be protected against infarction? This question is the subject of a subproject the Faculty of Medicine is conducting in the new Collaborative Research Centre SFB 1116 (“Master switches in cardiac ischemia”), which has been established by the German Research Foundation at the University of Düsseldorf. The subproject at University Hospital Essen is receiving 900,000 euros in funding. Almost one in two deaths in Germany today can be attributed to cardiovascular diseases, originating either in the vascular system or the heart. The most common of these is acute cardiac or myocardial infarction (AMI). The new SFB sets out to investigate the post-AMI phase more closely by means of experimental, preclinical and clinical analysis. The aim is to identify mechanisms that determine the course of recovery and find possible starting points for new therapies. The University of Düsseldorf as the coordinating university and the UDE’s Faculty of Medicine are working with the Leibniz Centre for Diabetes Research Düsseldorf and the Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine Düsseldorf as participating institutions. Led by Prof. Gerd Heusch and PD Dr. Petra Kleinbongard, the researchers in Essen are examining “Cardiac protection by remote ischemic conditioning during and post myocardial infarction”.