– HFpEF-DIVA

Heart Failure (HF) is a syndrome that affects up to 15 million of Europeans, and it commonly occurs in patients affected by other cardiovascular risk factors, including obesity, diabetes, kidney disease and elevated blood pressure. Half of these HF patients suffer from stiffening of the heart, a syndrome referred to as “HF with preserved ejection fraction” or HFpEF. To improve survival and quality of life of patients, there is an urgent need to improve diagnosis and develop personalized treatments. One important underlying mechanism of HFpEF is inflammation. In our project, we will determine the specific inflammatory status in each category of HFpEF patients (more obese, or elderly, or with kidney dysfunction?). We expect that this will enable identification of patients with poor prognosis who would stand to benefit the most from specific anti-inflammatory treatments.

To find better treatments, we will use experimental HFpEF models (cell culture and small laboratory animals) to test specific drugs in the form of blocking antibodies to reduce inflammation. Indeed, such drugs are currently used to treat other inflammatory diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis. We expect that our research will demonstrate that these treatments may also be beneficial in HFpEF.

To further improve anti-inflammatory treatments, we will develop new molecular tools, such as “nanobodies” – which are miniature antibodies- that can be combined to build Nanomedicine tools with capacity to block several specific inflammatory mediators at once. By creating a flexible nanobody tool box, we hope to contribute to a medical revolution for HFpEF based on adapting, on a molecular level, the treatment to fit individual patient’s needs. Such individualized, Personalized Medicine, with on-demand blockage of specific inflammatory agents using new “designer drugs”, is expected to be more efficient to treat HFpEF and thus improve the survival and quality of life of patients with this disease.