Cardiovascular Pharmacology

BIOGRAPHY

CURRENT POSITION:
Investigator and Head, Molecular Cardiology Unit, Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science, National Institute on Aging

EDUCATION AND BACKGROUND:
Dr Boheler received his BSc from Duke University and his PhD in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California, San Diego. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship and working as a Researcher in Molecular Biology at Unit 127 of the National Institutes of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris, France, he was appointed Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at Imperial College School of Medicine in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, London, United Kingdom. In October 1996, he joined the NIH in Baltimore to head the Molecular Cardiology Unit of the Cardiac Function Section of the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
The main focus of this unit is to define the molecular bases of aging in the heart. Many features of the age-associated changes in heart cells resemble those found during fetal development. For this reason, emphasis has been placed both on studies of development and on that of aging. The focus on early cardiac gene expression has relied greatly on the use of an embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation model system. In these studies, potential early cardiac gene transcription factors will be identified and the proteins responsible for activating expression are being targeted using standard molecular biological techniques. For aging, a number of model systems are being developed so that specific genes can be targeted during senescence to examine their functional consequences. Each project area has multiple components, and it is hoped that through integration of developmental with aging studies, we will be able to obtain a global view of cardiac gene expression and how alterations in individual gene expression patterns lead to physiological and pathophysiological consequences.