Brown’s Liu Awarded American Heart Association Funding for Genome Research
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Brown University professor Dr. Simin Liu is among the first scientists funded by the American Heart Association (AHA) to work on a new Cardiovascular Genome-Phenome initiative that will investigate how diet can affect an individual's likelihood to contract cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes across different ethnic groups.
A Cause for Research
"There are potential common mechanisms for type 2 diabetes (and cardiovascular diseases), we need to validate them across different populations," said Liu. "Now we can look at this in a whole system with a gene-diet prospective. Fundamentally our genomes are organized into networks and pathways, and dietary influence on our bodies affects that. The AHA wants us to be able to expedite the process of finding these targets and it will enhance diagnoses."
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLiu, a professor of epidemiology and medicine, underwent a 5 month selection process that began this past June to be chosen to work on this initiative. "Obviously it's a highly competitive selection process, and I’m thankful for my peers who gave me great reviews - they’ve supported me through the multi-stage process," said Liu of his Brown constituents.
"I think [Dr. Liu] is a lucky recipient," said MD, PhD. Joseph Weiss, new recruit of Lifespan's Cardiology Division and Brown. "I would describe the technology for the sequencing DNA and the whole genome sequence as an information tsunami - it has been advancing so rapidly that we can expedite research. The idea behind this grant is to figure out what all the information means," said Weiss. "It's fascinating and I think that there is such great work to be done here, and I’m glad the AHA will be supporting this."
Funding
The AHA will be providing Liu with $500,000 over two years to fund his research for the Cardiovascular Genome-Phenome initiative in the hopes of indentifying new strategies for fighting and treating these epidemic diseases which currently affect tens of millions of people worldwide.
Last month Liu and his collaborators published a study in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics revealing common genes and biological pathways connecting type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Liu will now be able to expound on this research through the suport of the AHA.
"We had teams compete for this award, and now my team and I are a part of this transformative initiative that the AHA is putting together," said Liu.
The Scientists
Liu will be joined by researchers from Israel Deaconess Medical Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of North Carolina, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston University Medical Campus, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who will also contribute their individual findings to the initiative.
“These scientists are building the future on the power of the past and are following in the footsteps of the American Heart Association’s founders in a bold and novel way,” AHA President Dr. Elliott Antman said while announcing the grant winners at the AHA’s annual meeting in Chicago on Sunday.
For more information, please visit the AHA's site or contact David Orenstein at 401-863-1862.
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