Heart-Lung Foundation Fellowship to Marcel den Hoed
Marcel den Hoed has been awarded a three-year fellowship by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation. The fellowship will allow Marcel den Hoed and his group to continue their genetic screens for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the main cause of death in Sweden and worldwide, and new drugs for prevention and treatment are urgently needed.
Large-scale genetic studies in humans have identified hundreds of DNA regions that are robustly associated with the risk of CAD and its risk factors, like LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels, blood pressure, insulin resistance and diabetes. While providing an excellent first lead, the causal genes and mechanisms through which these DNA regions influence disease risk largely remain unknown.
To increase our understanding of disease processes and yield new targets that can be translated into efficient medication, it is essential to identify and characterise the causal genes. Given the large number of candidate genes, new, efficient model systems are required for systematic experimental follow-up.
Marcel den Hoed and his team have developed and validated experimental pipelines that enable robust, large-scale, image-based characterisation of genes with an anticipated role in CAD and its risk factors using zebrafish larvae.
(Image removed) Marcel den Hoed
The new fellowship allows Marcel den Hoed and his group to characterise at least 80 candidate genes with an anticipated role in triglyceride levels, blood pressure and/or atherosclerosis during the next three years.
Press release Swedish Heart Lung Foundation (in Swedish)
More information about Marcel den Hoed’s research (Link removed)