Using Genetics as a Tool to Prevent Disease
In This Video
- Heart failure affects 30 million individuals worldwide, with a five-year mortality rate of about 50%, despite therapeutic advancements
- Genetics are a tool to identify patients most at risk for heart failure in order to prevent disease
- Assessing genetic variants of cardiovascular disease in large data sets, numbering in the millions, requires sophisticated computational tools available to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital
In this video, Krishna Aragam, MD, MS, preventative cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses his research on the genetic determinants of heart failure. Dr. Aragam's research into the population genetics of cardiovascular disease (CVD) aims to identify patients who are most at risk for heart failure to improve CVD prevention.
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Transcript
My research focuses on heart failure and in particular the genetic determinants of heart failure at a population level. Our work is inspired by the growing global burden of heart failure and the pressing need to prevent disease. And, we use genetics as a tool to identify those patients most at risk for heart failure in an effort to prevent disease.
My motivation to pursue prevention has stemmed from various research and clinical experiences caring for patients with heart failure who have had a very poor course. We've seen that heart failure affects, you know, approximately 30 million individuals worldwide, and the mortality rate is quite high. Someone who has a diagnosis of heart failure has a five-year mortality rate of about 50%, and this is in spite of considerable therapeutic advances in the heart failure sphere. And so, there is a growing emphasis on prevention, and that is something that really motivated me to pursue that line of research.
Mass General is unique in our collaboration with the Broad Institute and the computational power that that offers. And so, our group focuses on the population genetic determinants of cardiovascular diseases, but in particular, looking at common genetic variation in the population that puts people at risk for disease, a subject that requires the study of very large populations on the orders of, not just thousands, but half million to millions. And being able to assess that at scale requires sophisticated computational tools that we are privileged to be able to have here in this setting.
And so, our work focuses on harnessing those tools and the genetic data to better identify variants, genetic variants that are associated with cardiovascular diseases. And, to put them together to, again, identify those patients who are most at risk.
Learn more about the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center
Refer a patient to the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center