Welcome to the Ky Lab

Cancer and cardiovascular disease are two of the largest contributors to morbidity and mortality globally. Despite this tremendous public health burden, there are fundamental gaps in our understanding of disease mechanisms and in the application of evidence-based strategies for the clinical care of this growing population.

The Ky research lab is a National Institutes of Health-and American Heart Association-funded, internationally recognized program that focuses on advancing the cardiovascular health of patients living with and beyond cancer through clinical science. Our research focuses on understanding the underlying mechanisms and predictors of cancer therapy cardiotoxicity and heart failure and translating this understanding to the clinical care of patients. Our programmatic objectives are to use innovative strategies in detailed cardiovascular phenotyping to define and mitigate an individual cancer patient’s risk of developing subsequent cardiovascular disease.

Our ongoing projects focus on determining the role of mechanistic markers, including circulating biomarkers and imaging-derived markers of cardiac mechanics in understanding and predicting adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Our research also focuses on social determinants of health and health disparities through understanding and mitigating the inequities in cardiovascular disease in cancer patients. We have established multiple patient-oriented cohort studies and Phase I-II clinical trials across the Abramson Cancer Center and University of Pennsylvania Cancer System to achieve our programmatic goals.