Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation Invests in Cardiovascular Regeneration Research

Bernard Kühn, M.D., a scientist at the Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, is being awarded a $200,000 grant from the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation.

The grant is being provided from the Fund for Genomic Discovery, which was raised by the Foundation’s Research and Education Program Committee. Established in 2012, the Research and Education Program Committee promotes the awareness of funding needs and priorities of physician-scientists at Children’s Hospital. Through various fundraising initiatives, the committee seeks to broaden the network of philanthropists, raise money to fund the gaps between government grants, and provide seed funding for new avenues of scientific investigation.

Through hosting two events, combined with additional fundraising efforts, more than $520,000 has been raised for research.

“This funding will allow my team to enter the field of fibrosis research, a new area of investigation for my lab. If successful, this project will provide a broadly applicable molecular-genetic blueprint for the field of cardiovascular development and for developing new drugs to reduce fibrosis in heart disease,” said Dr. Kühn, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “Working directly with me on this research is Dennis Kostka, Ph.D., an expert in Developmental Biology and Computational & Systems Biology, who will offer his expertise on the computational aspects of the research.”

Dr. Kühn, also the director of research at Children’s Heart Institute, joined the faculty in September 2014, and has been focused on the unique workings of heart muscle cells. His long-term objective is to provide novel approaches and molecular targets for the treatment of heart failure, primarily by studying the mechanisms of growth and regeneration of the myocardium, the muscle tissue of the heart.

Dr. Kühn and his team of researchers are focused on cardiomyocytes, the cells of the heart muscle, and discovering ways to make them replicate and proliferate so as to enable the heart to heal itself in cases of heart failure or congenital defects.

“Dr. Kühn is one of the leading researchers in heart regeneration and this funding will give him the opportunity to further explore the growth of heart cells and the advancement of treatments for heart failure,” said David H. Perlmutter, M.D., physician-in-chief and scientific director, Children’s Hospital, and Distinguished Professor and Vira I. Heinz Endowed Chair, Department of Pediatrics, Pitt School of Medicine.

Dr. Kühn is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the American College of Cardiology’s prestigious Young Investigator Award, the Basil O’Connor Award from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, and Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association.

For more information on Dr. Kühn, please visit www.chp.edu.

Andrea Kunicky, 412-692-6254, andrea.kunicky@chp.edu
Marc Lukasiak, 412-692-7919, marc.lukasiak@chp.edu