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UNC cardiology researcher receives National Established Investigator Award
Dr. Da-Zhi Wang, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, has been selected to receive a National Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.
Dec. 11, 2007
UNC cardiology researcher receives National Established Investigator Award
Dr. Da-Zhi Wang, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, has been selected to receive a National Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.
The award provides $500,000 in funding over a 5-year period for a research project headed by Wang that will investigate molecular regulation of cardiac gene expression and cardiomyocyte development.
“This award is further acknowledgement that Dr. Wang is one of the best cardiovascular scientists in the country, and it reflects UNC’s commitment to find causes and cures for heart disease,” said Dr. Cam Patterson, chief of the division of cardiology in UNC’s School of Medicine.
Congenital heart defects represent one of the most common classes of birth defects, and cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of human mortality. The thorough understanding of the mechanisms that control early heart formation will be an important prelude to the development of strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of congenital cardiac defects.
“Understanding the mechanisms that control the early events in heart development will also have relevance to adult heart disease, such as cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, which seems to use similar regulatory mechanisms,” Wang said.
National Established Investigator Award Web site: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3019795
School of Medicine contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu