Heart disease is the leading cause of death globally, but the spectrum of heart disease varies both regionally and over time. My research group studies epidemiological patterns and molecular mechanisms for heart disease incidence and their common end-stage heart failure, in which the heart is unable to maintain the output of blood required by other tissues and intracardiac pressure increases.
We are currently particularly interested in:
- Population genetics and genetic contributions to heart disease
- Application of genetic tools to infer causal relations of risk factors with heart disease (‘mendelian randomization’)
- Downstream effects of genetic variants and epigenetic modifications in heart tissues
- Plasma profiling of metabolites and proteins to guide individually tailored prevention and therapy