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Anne W. Manning

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UT INVESTIGATOR WINS GRANT TO STUDY CARDIAC REGULATION

Could Lead to New Treatments for Heart Failure

 

            Memphis, Tennessee (August 19, 2005) – Rennolds Ostrom, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and the Vascular Biology Center of Excellence, has been awarded a $154,000 two-year grant by the American Heart Association (Southeast Affiliate).

            “Both beat-to-beat and long-term cardiac function is regulated, in part, by an intracellular messenger (cAMP).  My lab has found that certain enzymes, which are responsible for synthesizing this messenger, have very distinct locations inside heart muscle cells.  Altering the specific cellular location of these enzymes may improve cardiac function in the event of heart failure,” explained Dr. Ostrom.  His research mission is to understand the structural basis of these enzymes’s subcellular location, create hybrid proteins with altered localization, and determine how these new enzymes affect cardiac function.

            Dr. Ostrom completed his PhD in pharmacology and toxicology at the University of California, Irvine and a postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego.  Highly recognized throughout his career, Dr. Ostrom holds several awards including, the International Symposium on Vascular Neuroeffector Mechanisms Young Scientist Travel Award and the International Society of Hypertension Young Investigator Travel Award.  He was a 2001 finalist for the American Heart Association Louis and Arnold Katz Basic Science Research Prize which is presented annually to the most promising young investigator worldwide.

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