Thomas P. Cappola, MD, ScM
Photo: Thomas P. Cappola
Elected 2012
My laboratory uses the tools of clinical investigation and applied genomics to reveal mechanisms of human heart failure. This has included establishing a multicenter cohort study of advanced heart failure (Penn Heart Failure Study; PHFS) and a multicenter consortium for human myocardial transcriptomics and eQTL mapping (Myocardial Applied Genomics Network; MAGNet). Notable discoveries include the first demonstration that peripheral blood gene expression provides a clinical biomarker to track cardiac allograft rejection, identification of abnormalities in forkhead signaling and neuregulin signaling in common forms of human heart failure, and discovery of the 1p36 HSPB7/CLCNKA locus as the first bonafide genetic risk factor for non-familial heart failure.