When the blood supply to the heart muscle is blocked in an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), every second counts. But even when the obstructed vessels open up again thanks to emergency medical treatment, the long-term consequences for patients are often devastating. The new Research Training Group »RTG 2989 Targeting Cellular Interfaces in Reperfused Acute Myocardial Infarction (TCI repAMI)« is dedicated to one aspect of such consequential damage. This is an instance of cooperation between the University of Duisburg-Essen, including University Hospital Essen, and ISAS. A new tandem supervision strategy is intended to provide doctoral candidates with the best possible training at the interface between the laboratory and clinical practice. In 2023, the cooperation partners received approval from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), which will fund the Research Training Group with eight million euros from April 2024 to March 2029.
What is known as reperfusion injury may occur once the blood flow is restored following an acute myocardial infarction. As the blood suddenly starts to flow again, it floods the affected heart muscle cells with oxygen and nutrients, thereby triggering inflammation processes, for example. The objective of the »TCI repAMI« Research Training Group is to analyse and characterise the interaction underlying this process between specific immune cells, vessel cells and cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells). By doing so, the researchers intend to identify new targets for treatment approaches.
The bed-to-bench-to-bed principle
The Research Training Group comprises eleven sub-projects, each forming part of the three research areas of immune cells, vessel cells and cardiomyocytes. In each project, two experts from clinical practice and fundamental research form a tandem team to provide the total of 33 doctoral candidates (22 from the natural sciences and eleven from medicine) with the best possible interdisciplinary training. In this context, the consortium follows the bed-to-bench-tobed principle: starting with problem identification at the patient’s bedside, the project groups are intended to cover experimental design, the analysis and evaluation of the research data, and the contextualisation of the findings in a clinical context.