Welcome to Day Lab
The Day lab is interested in genetic heart muscle diseases. Our research program integrates translational and clinical science, with a primary focus on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. We want to understand the full spectrum of disease evolution and progression, from the primary effects of sarcomere gene variants in cardiac muscle cells to the phenotypic expression and predictors of adverse outcomes in patients.
Research News
Current Funding
Foundation Leducq International Network - Delineating Sarcomere Attributes Spanning Protein-structure to Function to Tackle Cardiac Disease: Sarc-Attack
R01 - Risk Alleles in Protein Quality Control Genes as Modifiers of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (NHLBI)
Dr. Day is the PI of Penn's recently funded American Heart Association Institutional Summer Undergraduate Research Award!
R01- Missense Variants In Myosin Binding Protein C That Cause Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy; National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute (NHLBI)
R61/R33 - Sglt2-Inhibitors In Patients With Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy; National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Individual Awards and Congratulations
Rebecca Taichman successfully defended her thesis for a Master’s of Translational Research entitled: “Preclinical studies of sotagliflozin in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy”!
Julia Rosenthal’s abstract at the American Physiological Society annual conference won the Barbara and John Horowitz Award for top undergraduate abstract and the David S. Bruce Award. Her “abstract was entitled “Elucidating the inflammatory landscape of hearts with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy”.
Dr. Day has received the Linda Pechenik Montague Investigator Award. This prestigious award was created by the philanthropist Linda Pechenik Montague to recognize promising research faculty at the Perelman School of Medicine. In addition to the prestigious recognition, the award will provide $100,000 to support the research work of Dr. Day and her lab. With great gratitude to Linda Pechenik Montague and to the Perelman School of Medicine for this honor.
Presentations and Conferences
Chris McAllister presented a poster for "Cardiac Specific AAVs Prevent Hypertrophy in a Novel Mouse Model of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy" at the CLIMB Symposium, sponsored by Cytokinetics in May 2025
Neha Hafeez presented at a moderated poster session at AHA 2024 and a poster at Internal Medicine Research Day 2025
Graham Branscom presented posters at the American Physiological Society 2025 and BCVS 2025.
Chris McAllister presented “Investigating the Effects of MYBPC3 Missense Variants on the Myofilament in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy” at the Developmental Stem-cell and Regenerative Biology Symposium, 2024 and the Cardiac Regulatory Mechanisms Gordon Research Conference, in 2024 in New Hampshire, and at the 2024 Myofilament Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin.
Chris McAllister and Marcus Wagner both presented abstracts at BCVS Boston!
Marcus Wagner present an abstract at "Best of AHA Subspecialty Conference" and a poster at the American Physiological Society 2025
Recent Manuscripts
Previs MJ, O'Leary TS, Morley MP, Palmer B, LeWinter M, Yob J, Pagani FD, Petucci C, Kim MS, Margulies KB, Arany Z, Delly DP, Day SM: Defects in the Proteome and Metabolome in Human Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Circulation HF 15(6): e009521, May 2022.
Herrera JJ, Pifer K, Louzon S, Leander D, Fiehn O, Day SM, Miller RA, Garratt M: Early or Late-life treatment with acarbose or rapamycin improves physical performance and affects cardiac structure in aging mice. J Gerontology A Biol Sci Med Sci 78(3): 397-406, March 2023.
Lampert R, Ackerman MJ, Marino BS, Burg M, Ainsworth B, Salberg L, Tome Esteban M, Ho CY, Abraham R, Balaji S, Barth C, Berul C, Bos M, Cannom D, Choudhury L, Concannon M, Cooper R, Czosek RJ, Dubin AM, Dziura J, Eidem B, Emery MS, Estes M, Etheridge SP, Geske JB, Gray B, Hall K, Harmon KG, James CA, Lal AK, Law IH, Li F, Link MS, McKenna WJ, Molossi S, Olshansky B, Ommen SR, Saarel EV, Saberi S, Simone L, Tomaselli G, Ware JS, Zipes DP, Day SM, for the LIVE Consortium: Vigorous Exercise in Patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. JAMA Cardiology 8(6): 595-605, June 2023
Thompson AD, Wagner MJ, Rodriguez J, Malhotra A, Roest SV, Lilienthal U, Shao H, Yob JM, Prosser BL, Helms AS, Gestwicki JE, Ginsburg D, Day SM. : An unbiased screen identified the Hsp70-BAG3 complex as a regulator of myosin binding protein C3 stability. JACC BTS Page: in press, 2023.
Day SM, Tardiff JC, Ostap EM: Myosin modulators: Emerging approaches for the treatment of cardiomyopathies and heart failure. JCI 132(5): e148557, March 2022.
Hastings MH, Herrera JJ, Guseh S, Atlason B, Houstis NE, Kadir AA, Le H, Sheffield C, Singh AP, Roh J, Day SM, Rosenzweig A: Animal Models of Exercise from Rodents to Pythons. Circulation Research 130(12): 1994-2014, June 2022.