Zhang and colleagues win an $11.2 million NIH program project grant

Zhang won $11.2 million NIH PPG grant to improve heart attack recovery through the growth of new heart muscle cells.

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY F ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year, $11.2 million program project grant, or PPG, to Jianyi “Jay’’ Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues to study how to restore the dead tissue from a heart attack, through the growth of new heart muscle cells. 

That is a challenge because mammalian hearts show almost no ability to grow new heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes, after birth. After a heart attack from a blocked artery, the dead tissue is not repaired with new cardiomyocytes. Instead, it is replaced with scar tissue that weakens the pumping power of the heart and often leads to heart failure.

A surprising discovery by Zhang and colleagues - an experimental procedure that allowed heart muscle cell growth to be extended past birth - opened the door to new research.