Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dr. Amsalu Bizuneh works as a physician where he focuses on treating hospitalized patients, many of whom are acutely ill. Areas in which Dr. Amsalu Bizuneh has an extensive background include cardiovascular disease and advanced heart failure.
Despite its name, heart failure does not involve the heart ceasing to beat suddenly. Rather, it involves the inability of the heart to pump sufficient oxygen and blood throughout the body. It is most common among those who have suffered heart attack, as this event involves a cessation or reduction of oxygen and blood flow into the heart itself. This causes the healthy heart muscle tissue to atrophy, which is then replaced by fibroblasts, or lifeless scar tissue. The heart often weakens from there to a point where it is unable to support the body and “fails.”
Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston recently announced a potential pathway toward reversing severe heart failure through “silencing” the Hippo signaling interactive pathway. The Hippo signaling pathway controls the size of organs by regulating cell proliferation and apoptosis (the normal death of cells as an organism grows and develops). With the observation of increased activity taking place within the Hippo pathway during heart failure, scientists postulated that cutting it off during severe stages of injury might help the heart heal.
Using mice with severely injured hearts as subjects, this approach was tested and after a period of six weeks, pumping functions had returned to a healthy, stable level. This reflected an altering of fibrosis and an increase in the number of muscles capable of functioning within a damaged heart.
