Evaluation of ADAM-15 in atrial fibrillation

Objective

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in Europe affecting more than 6 million people. AF is associated with significant mortality and morbidity including an increased risk for stroke, dementia and heart failure. Thus, AF is a major healthcare burden.
The pathophysiology of AF is complex and still not fully understood. Increasing data support a genetic component to AF. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified genetic variants associated with increased susceptibility for AF. However, the mechanism by which genetic variants influence the risk for AF is still unknown. At one AF risk locus with many genes, the top SNP is related to transcriptional levels of the metalloproteinase ADAM-15. Since ADAM-15 can activate inflammatory cytokines and regulate extracellular matrix turnover, it is a strong candidate gene for AF.
To investigate the role of ADAM-15 in AF, the candidate, Dr. Sebastian Clauss, will characterize the cardiac phenotype of an ADAM-15 knockout mouse model. Dr. Clauss proposes to seek postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick Ellinor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. During his training he will acquire new skills for characterizing mice including electrocardiography, echocardiography, invasive hemodynamics, electrophysiology (EP) studies, and optical mapping. This training opportunity would be a crucial step in Dr. Clauss’ career development as it will not only expand his scientific skills it will also enable the transfer of his knowledge and experience to Europe upon his return. Finally, he will establish a mouse electrophysiology facility in Munich that will provide the basis for his future career as an independent researcher and will further increase European research excellence.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• medical and health sciences clinical medicine cardiology cardiovascular diseases cardiac arrhythmia
• social sciences sociology demography mortality
• medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology pathophysiology
• medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia
• medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology stroke

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF - Marie Curie Action: "International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development"

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IOF - International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)

Coordinator