Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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racial disparities

Racial disparities in a CV biomarker

Because circulating progenitor cells repair blood vessels, they are a measure of regenerative capacity in the cardiovascular system. Cardiologist Arshed Quyyumi, MD and his colleagues at Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute have intensively studied this cell type as a marker of vulnerability or resilience.

A recent paper from Quyyumi’s team in Circulation Research examines circulating progenitor cells (CPCs) through the lens of racial disparity. The authors find that African-Americans tend to have lower levels of this regenerative biomarker:

In a large well-characterized biracial cohort, we demonstrate that black participants had significantly lower CPC counts compared with whites, even after adjustment for differences in demographic factors and CVD risk factors. These results were validated in an independent cohort. Thus, on average, after adjustment for sex and other CVD risk factors, blacks have CPC levels that are ≈15% to 30% lower compared with whites, even in subjects free of risk factors. CPC levels decline with age, reaching on average half the levels at age 80 compared with age 20. We found that blacks have CPC counts equivalent to those in whites who are 14 years older. CPC levels are higher after AMI as a result of mobilization because of injury. We show for first time that blacks have 30% to 35% lower CPC mobilization in the setting of AMI.

This is a tricky area to study. How many socioeconomic and environmental factors go into the racial disparities of cardiovascular disease risk? Diet. Exercise. Geography, education, access to healthcare. Air pollution. Psychological stress and inflammation associated with discrimination. It is possible to view CPCs as summing up many of these influences, analogous to the way hemoglobin A1C measurements integrate someone’s blood sugar levels over time as a marker of diabetes. Read more

Posted on August 29, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Heart Leave a comment