Jeffrey Goldberger
University of Miami, FL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Atrial fibrillation (AF), a chaotic rhythm in the heart's upper chambers (the atria), is the most common heart rhythm disorder and a major cause of stroke. Blood clots can form in the left atrium and travel to the brain.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
atrial fibrillation
stroke
atrial cardiopathy
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2029
What they work on
- Compare 4D flow MRI measures of left atrial appendage blood stasis and other atrial cardiopathy markers across patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source, AF-related stroke, AF alone, and neither.
- Identify clinical factors that predict worsening left atrial appendage stasis by repeating heart MRI after 2 years in 229 patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source.
- Test whether left atrial appendage stasis is the strongest independent predictor of repeat ischemic stroke and new atrial fibrillation in patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source.
- Test in a dog rapid-atrial-pacing model whether gene transfer of Gαi/o inhibitory peptides, which block parasympathetic signaling, at sites flagged by EMR mapping reverses electrical remodeling and AF.
- Test in the same dog model whether NOX2 shRNA or mitochondrial catalase, which reduce oxidative injury, delivered to EMR-identified sites reverses remodeling, limits fibrosis and decreases AF.
- Randomize patients with persistent AF to EMR-guided ablation or pulmonary vein isolation alone, and compare ECG dominant frequency after treatment.
More about the research
Yet many strokes have no clear cause, and current AF treatments often fail because they do not target what actually keeps the arrhythmia going. The two projects take two angles: finding patients whose atria are prone to forming clots, and finding and treating the electrical sources that sustain AF.
Why it matters
Better ways to identify which stroke survivors have a clot-prone atrium could broaden options for preventing first and repeat strokes and new atrial fibrillation. Patients with persistent AF, for whom current therapies are often unsatisfactory, could benefit if EMR mapping proves useful for guiding ablation. The gene therapy approaches could also become new treatments, possibly used in combination.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anna Pfenniger
Northwestern University, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Map when and where endothelial dysfunction appears during atrial fibrillation, especially the shift from paroxysmal to persistent AF, in two large animal models of AF.
Peter Hanna
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify which ganglionated plexus neurons supply the pulmonary veins and back wall of the left atrium by injecting a retrograde neural tracer into donated human hearts and imaging them with confocal microscopy.
Thomas Everett
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether skin sympathetic nerve activity (SKNA), nerve signals recorded noninvasively from the skin, predicts brain recovery in cardiac arrest patients receiving targeted temperature management, a protective cooling therapy.
The school
University of Miami: 30 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 297 research doctorates a year.
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