The Chaudhuri Lab
The Chaudhuri Laboratory’s research is investigate how cardiac metabolism is altered in heart failure, and use these discoveries to seek new therapeutic interventions. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Heart failure—the inability of the heart to pump sufficient blood with each heartbeat—is an increasingly prevalent cause of such disease, contributing to one in 9 deaths in the United States. We study how altering the transport of calcium ions into mitochondria, critical for the cardiac heartbeat and metabolism, can be used to treat heart failure. For these studies, we focus on both adult and pediatric forms of this disease, particularly those caused by mitochondrial dysfunction.
Research Areas
Metabolism in Heart Failure: As heart failure progresses, rewiring of metabolism leads to a global decline in ATP synthesis. We investigate how cardiac metabolism is altered in heart failure to seek new therapeutic interventions.
Mitochondrial Calcium Signaling: Calcium signaling is critical for cardiac contraction and metabolism. We aim to define the molecular pathways that control mitochondrial calcium signaling and target these for novel therapeutics.
Calcium Regulation in Mitochondrial Cardiomyopathies: In cardiomyopathies triggered by OXPHOS dysfunction, we find increased mitochondrial calcium influx through the mitochondrial calcium uniporter and diminished efflux through the sodium-calcium exchanger.
Biophysics of Mitochondrial Ion Channels: We use mitoplasts — purified mitochondria stripped of their outer membranes — interrogated via voltage-clamping to measure ionic currents, including through the mitochondrial calcium uniporter.