Arrhythmic Mystery — The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has awarded Dr. Thomas McDonald $1.67 million over five years to study the mechanism underlying long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disease that causes sudden, uncontrollable disturbances in heart rhythm. A potassium ion channel called hERG controls the heart’s electrical activity, and defects in this channel are known to cause LQTS. Such defects can occur because of mutations, interaction with certain drugs or environmental stress. But it’s not clear why the hERG is so susceptible to these influences. This grant supports Dr. McDonald’s research into whether this susceptibility might be due to some characteristic of the genes responsible for forming hERG. His research could also shed light on how defective hERG functioning contributes to LQTS and point the way toward better treatments for the syndrome. Dr. McDonald is professor of medicine and of molecular pharmacology.
Posted on: Monday, June 09, 2014