Molecular Biology of Valvular Heart Disease (eBook)

The cellular mechanisms of valvular heart disease have not been elucidated until the last decade. To date, there is no medical therapy that is FDA or CE mark approved for the treatment and/or slowing the progression of this disease. This textbook will provide the cellular basis for medical therapy. Over the past decade, research laboratories are more and more evolving into valvular biology programs from the traditional vascular biology. The science between the two disciplines, although has several similarities has unique cellular targets secondary to the embryologic derivation of the heart valve  and the hemodynamics involved in the understanding of this disorders. This textbook will be a natural progression from the recently published text Cardiac Valvular Medicine, Springer 2012. This new textbook will provide the cellular details and the more basic molecular biology approaches towards understanding the disease, providing novel cellular targets and finally developing future clinical trials in the medical treatment of valvular heart disease in the future.

Nalini M. Rajamannan, MD has been studying the cellular biology of valvular heart disease since 1987. She has trained at the Mayo Clinic, in molecular biology, cardiology and echocardiography to develop an expertise which is translational in the approach towards valvular medicine. Her expertise has developed the initial experimental models towards studying medical therapies for this disease process. She is the chair of NHLBI/NIH working group in calcific aortic valve disease. This white paper was published in Circulation in Oct 2011. She has had NIH funding in this field since 2002 and has published 60 papers, several book chapters and the most recent textbook in Cardiac Valvular Medicine. She also has 3 patents in the field of cardiac valve signaling and pathogenesis of this disease.

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The cellular mechanisms of valvular heart disease have not been elucidated until the last decade. To date, there is no medical therapy that is FDA or CE mark approved for the treatment and/or slowing the progression of this disease. This textbook will provide the cellular basis for medical therapy. Over the past decade, research laboratories are more and more evolving into valvular biology programs from the traditional vascular biology. The science between the two disciplines, although has several similarities has unique cellular targets secondary to the embryologic derivation of the heart valve and the hemodynamics involved in the understanding of this disorders. This textbook will be a natural progression from the recently published text Cardiac Valvular Medicine, Springer 2012. This new textbook will provide the cellular details and the more basic molecular biology approaches towards understanding the disease, providing novel cellular targets and finally developing future clinical trials in the medical treatment of valvular heart disease in the future.