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Zebrafish heart with prominent coronary vessels (marked by transgenic fluorescent reporters)

Heart disease is among the leading causes of death for both adults and children. A heart attack (or myocardial infarction) occurs when the heart is deprived of oxygen due to blockage of a coronary artery.  Coronary arteries supply the heart muscle with oxygenated blood.  Yet, the mechanisms that regulate coronary vascularization of the myocardium (the middle and thickest muscle layer of the heart wall) remain unknown.

Ching-Ling (Ellen) Lien, PhD, an investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles , is using zebrafish as a model system to study developmental and regenerative processes of the heart.  Her aim is to determine the molecular and cellular mechanisms of myocardial vascularization during heart development. Zebrafish have become an important vertebrate model for cardiovascular research not only because of their natural ability to regenerate, but also because of their transparency which allow researchers to observe the internal processes like blood vessel development.  

“Our long-term goal is to use the mechanisms of zebrafish heart regeneration as a blueprint to design potential therapeutic approaches to enhance heart repair in humans,” said Lien, principal investigator and an assistant professor of surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

The investigators expect that their research can lead to findings that will shed light on potential developmental causes of coronary heart disease and may enhance neovascularization (new blood vessel formation in abnormal tissue) in diseased human hearts in the future.

Co-investigators on the team include: Scott Fraser, PhD, and Megan McCain, PhD, both of the University of Southern California. Other collaborators include Mark Frey, PhD, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Henry Sucov, PhD of USC.  The research is supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Willowbrook State School, Staten Island, NY  

50 years ago, children with developmental disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were routinely institutionalized because families were ill-equipped to care for them.

Today, thanks to research funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, pediatric health care professionals  have  an increasing number of tools and interventional therapies that help children with autism live at home, attend school, college and grow up to become productive members of society.

“In addition to better tools for diagnosis and interventions, scientific research has led to better awareness among parents, teachers and physicians,” says Larry Yin, MD, MSPH, the Medical Director of the Boone Fetter Clinic for autism at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles that provides diagnostic services and follow-up care for children and adolescents who have concerns in the areas of neurodevelopment, behavior, attention, sensory processing, feeding difficulties and social-emotional development.

NIH-funded research has shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty recognizing and interpreting how facial expressions convey different emotions – from joy to puzzlement, sadness to anger – making it difficult to successfully navigate social situations. Evidence-based findings like this lead to more effective interventions for children with autism.

The research leading to these advances was funded by taxpayers like you. The currently proposed federal budget cuts funding for medical research by nearly 20%. Please express your desire to continue having  tax dollars invested in children’s health by contacting your representative and expressing your interest in fully funding the NIH. This important work, that benefits us all, should be continued.

Thank you for your support.

Join Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in the

March For Science on Saturday, April 22, 2017

March For Science Los Angeles http://marchforsciencela.com/