Mete Civelek, PhD, untapping potential targets to prevent heart attacks

Mete Civelek, PhD, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Transcript:
Well, what I love about my research is that we follow our curiosity wherever it takes us and our research results bring me hope that one day we will be able to help patients who are living with cardiovascular disease.
My name is Mete Civelek. I'm an associate professor of biomedical Engineering and I am a resident faculty at the Center for Public Health Genomics. I'm a cardiovascular researcher and my lab aims to understand how our genetic makeup increases our risk of having a heart attack. And we do this by using both computational approaches and experimental approaches.
In the last 15 years or so, human genetic studies showed us that there are many additional untapped potential targets to prevent heart attacks. So my laboratory is studying smooth muscle cells, which make up an important part of our arteries, which is where plaques develop. And when these plaques rupture, that leads to heart attacks. So we're trying to find targets that will prevent this flat rupture.
And we hope that the Manning Biotechnology Institute will accelerate our findings into therapeutics.