Myocardial Applied Genomics Network

MAGNet

People

Principal Investigators

Kenneth B. Margulies, M.D.

Kenneth B. Margulies, M.D.

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Department: Medicine
Graduate Group Affiliations: Cell and Molecular Biology
Contact information:
Heart Failure and Transplant Research
3400 Civic Center Blvd, Building 421
11th floor, Room 11-101
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215-573-2980
Fax: 215-898-3473
Email: ken.margulies@uphs.upenn.edu

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Dr. Margulies is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Heart Failure and Transplant Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Margulies received his undergraduate education at Princeton University and his medical education at Jefferson Medical College. He received specialty training in internal medicine, cardiology and cardiovascular research at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Margulies is a clinician-scientist who has been involved in lab-based research continuously since 1989. His research program focuses on heart failure, load-induced myocardial remodeling, and myocardial repair and recovery.

Dr. Margulies' laboratory utilizes human tissues made available at the time of cardiac transplantation, clinically relevant animal models, and patient-based translational research. Current areas of active inquiry include large-scale integrative genomics designed to determine the human relevance of transcriptional regulators implicated in rodent myocardium. Ongoing studies related to cardiac regeneration are elucidating the factors regulating the myocardial engraftment of cardiac stem cells and the functional capacity of resident vs. engrafted human cardiac stem cells. Other studies are employing tissue engineering techniques to examine load-mediated myocardial remodeling, myogenesis and cell-cell interactions between cardiac myocytes and fibroblasts. Dr. Margulies receives funding from the N.I.H., American Heart Association and commercial entities involved with pharmaceutical and biotechnology development.

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Thomas P. Cappola, MD, ScM

Thomas P. Cappola, M.D., Sc.M.

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Associate Professor of Medicine
Department: Medicine
Graduate Group Affiliations: Genomics and Computational Biology
Contact Information:
Penn Cardiovascular Institute
11-102 Translational Research Center
3400 Civic Center Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215-615-0805
Fax: 215-615-0828
Email: thomas.cappola@uphs.upenn.edu

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Dr. Cappola is a heart failure specialist and physician-scientist at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His laboratory uses clinical investigation and applied genomics to reveal mechanisms of human heart failure. Notable discoveries include demonstration that peripheral blood gene expression provides a clinical biomarker to track cardiac allograft rejection, identification of abnormalities in forkhead signaling and neuregulin signaling in common forms of human heart failure, and discovery of 1p36 as the first bonafide genetic risk factor for non-familial heart failure. In recognition of these successes, he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008.

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W.H. Wilson Tang, MD

W.H. Wilson Tang, M.D.

Cleveland Clinic

Departments: Cardiovascular Medicine, Cell Biology, Genomic Medicine Institute, Critical Care Center, Transplantation Center
Location: Cleveland Clinic Main Campus
Mail Code J3-4
9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44195
Work Appointment: 216-444-6697
Desk: 216-444-6744

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W. H. Wilson Tang, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Director of Cardiomyopathy Program at the Cleveland Clinic, as well as Research Director of the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Tang graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree from Brown University in Rhode Island, where he received an honorary one-year period of study of the natural sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge University, in England. Dr. Tang received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and a research fellowship in heart failure at Stanford University Medical Center. This was followed by a Cleveland Clinic fellowship in clinical cardiology, and an advanced clinical fellowship in heart failure and cardiac transplantation. He was appointed to Cleveland Clinic in 2004 as a Staff Physician in the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine. Dr. Tang is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and has committee appointments in the Heart Failure Society of America.

Dr. Tang's current research interests include nitrative stress and novel biomarkers in heart failure, cardio-renal interactions, modulation of innate and adaptive immunity, and device-based monitoring in heart failure. He has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and American College of Cardiology, and has published over 230 peer-reviewed articles in leading medical and scientific journals as well as chapters in medical textbooks.

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Christine Moravec, Ph.D.

Christine Moravec, Ph.D.

Cleveland Clinic

Department: Cardiovascular Medicine
Associate Staff
Location: Cleveland Clinic Main Campus
Mail Code NE61
9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44195

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Christine Moravec, PhD, is a Research Scientist and Director of Basic Research in the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Moravec also runs the human heart tissue bank, which allows researchers at Cleveland Clinic to study the causes and possible treatments of human heart diseases. Dr. Moravec attended John Carroll University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious studies, followed by a Master of Science degree in biology. Dr. Moravec went on to pursue a PhD in regulatory biology from Cleveland State University, completing her dissertation research work on cardiac hypertrophy at the Cleveland Clinic in the Department of Heart and Hypertension. She then trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cleveland Clinic Department of Cardiovascular Biology, completing her specialty training in cardiac cell physiology. Following postdoctoral training, Dr. Moravec moved on to the positions of Research Associate and Project Scientist within the Department of Cardiovascular Biology. Dr. Moravec joined the Professional Staff at Cleveland Clinic in 1993, in the Department of Molecular Cardiology, and she subsequently worked for eight years in the Center for Anesthesiology Research before joining the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure in 2002.

Dr. Moravec's research interests include cellular and molecular alterations in human heart failure, male-female differences in the heart failure phenotype, the autonomic nervous system and its role in cardiovascular disease, and remodeling of the failing heart using both surgical and psychophysiologic interventions.

Dr. Moravec's work has been funded by the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health. She has published numerous articles in leading journals including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Circulation, Circulation Research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

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Euan A. Ashley, MRCP DPhil

Euan A. Ashley, MRCP DPhil

Stanford School of Medicine

Stanford University
Assistant Professor – Med Center Line, Medicine – Cardiovascular Medicine
Email: euan@stanford.edu
Alternate Contact:
Terra Coakley
Program Manager, Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease
Email: tcoakley@stanford.edu
Work: 650-498-4900

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Euan Angus Ashley is Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University, California and Director of the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease.

Born and raised in Scotland, Dr Ashley graduated with 1st class Honors in Physiology and Medicine from the University of Glasgow in 1996. After completing residency at the University of Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, he joined the PhD program in Molecular Cardiology at the University of Oxford. His work elucidating a role for intra-myocardial nitric oxide in cardiac contractility attracted Young Investigator awards from the UK Medical Research Society, the European Society of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. In 2002, he moved to California to work with Thomas Quertermous, Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Stanford University. Under his mentorship, Dr Ashley designed and applied a genome wide microarray to the discovery of gene networks in atherosclerosis and heart failure. In 2006, he joined the faculty of Stanford and started an independent laboratory funded by a K award from the NHLBI and a National Innovation award from the American Heart Association. In 2009, he was awarded an NIH Director's New Innovator award. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a whole human genome, and in 2011, the team extended the approach to a family of four. In addition to being part of the MAGNet group, Dr Ashley is currently a member of the leadership group of the American Heart Association's Council on Functional Genomics, Chair of the Program committee of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and co-Director of the NIH-funded Research Training Program in Myocardial Biology at Stanford.

Father to two young Americans, in his 'spare' time, he tries (and usually fails) to understand baseball, plays the saxophone in a jazz quartet, and conducts research on the health benefits of single malt Scotch whisky.

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Andrew Connolly, MD

Andrew Connolly, MD

Stanford School of Medicine

Stanford University
Associate Professor - Med Center Line, Pathology
300 Pasteur Drive
L235 MC 5324
Stanford, CA 94305
Work: 650-736-1550
Fax: 650-725-6902

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bio

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Collaborating Investigators

Hongzhe Li (Lee), Ph.D.

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Professor of Biostatistics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology Department: Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Graduate Group Affiliations: Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Genomics and Computational Biology
Contact Information:
215 Blockley Hall
423 Guardian Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021
Office: 215-573-5038
Fax: 215-573-1050
Email: hongzhe@uphs.upenn.edu

Mingyao Li, Ph.D.

Mingyao Li, Ph.D.

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology Department: Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Graduate Group Affiliations: Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Genomics and Computational Biology
Contact Information:
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
213 Blockley Hall
423 Guardian Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021
Office: 215-746-3916
Fax: 215-573-4865
Email: mingyao@mail.medu.upenn.edu

Sridhar Hannenhalli, Ph.D.

Sridhar Hannenhalli, Ph.D.

University of Maryland

Adjunct Associate Professor of Genetics
Contact Information:
3104G Biomolecular Sciences Building #296
College Park, MD 20742
Office: 301-405-8219
Fax: 301-314-1341
Email: sridhar@umiacs.umd.edu

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Dr. Hannenhalli is an associate professor in the department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland and also in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. He received his PhD in 1996 in Computer Science from The Pennsylvania State University where he developed combinatorial algorithms for genome rearrangement problems. He has previously held research positions at Glaxo Smithkline, Celera Genomics and as Assistant and then Associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research focus is on comparative genomics, transcriptional regulation and evolution.

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Nicole Glazer PhD

Nicole Glazer, PhD

Boston University

Office:
761 Harrison Ave, Harrison Court
Phone: 617-638-9091
Fax: 617-638-8083
Email: nlglazer@bu.edu

Research Staff

Jamie Viterna, B.S.

Cleveland Clinic

Department: Cell Biology
Location: Cleveland Clinic Main Campus
Mail Code NE61
9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44195
Office: 216-444-4518
Email: viternj@ccf.org

Aleksandra Pavlovic

Aleksandra 'Aleks' Pavlovic

Stanford School of Medicine

Stanford University
Research Assistant and Genetics Coordinator
Falk Building
300 Pasteur Drive
Stanford, CA 94305
Work: 650-736-1147
Fax: 650-725-1599

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Aleks graduated from UC Irvine in 2004. Currently she is managing the Stanford Heart Failure Tissue Bank and Database. Also she is working on a variety of cardiovascular genetics studies including "Dramatic Response to Pharmaceutical Therapy Study" and "Coronary Artery Disease Prevention Using Genetics Study". She has a strong interest in the genetics of cardiovascular disease, as well as preventative cardiology and exercise physiology.

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Pablo Sanchez

Pablo Sanchez

Stanford School of Medicine

Stanford University
Graduate Student
Biomedical Informatics Program

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Pablo Sanchez-Cordero is a graduate student in the Biomedical Informatics program. He comes from Mexico City, where he did his undergraduate studies in computer science. He did his senior thesis project on the analysis of non-coding RNAs in the genome of the Taenia Solium. Ever since, RNA structure and its role in evolution, regulation, and complexity have been a constant theme in his research. His interests also encompass areas such as whole genome analysis and graph compressibility. He is currently part of the Ashley lab and the network modeling team in MAGNet.

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Jeff Brandimarto

Jeff Brandimarto

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Senior Researcher and Lab Manager
Heart Failure eQTL Study

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Jeff is a Senior Researcher and Lab Manager of the Heart Failure eQTL study at the University of Pennsylvania. Jeff received his undergraduate and graduate education at Rutgers University. Jeff is a scientist who has been involved in lab-based research continuously since 2007. His research focuses on heart failure, biomarker discovery, and molecular profiling. Current areas of active inquiry include large-scale integrative genomics designed to determine the human biomarkers in heart failure.

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Scott Ritter

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Department: Medicine
Contact information:
Heart Failure and Transplant Research
3400 Civic Center Blvd, Building 421
11th floor, Room 11-106A
Philadelphia, PA 19104

NHLBI Grant number 1R01HL105993-01A1