Young Investigator Award - Basic Science

This award, created in 1970, goes to young investigators working in clinical or basic-science cardiovascular research. The investigator must be either a research trainee or researcher in his or her first independent university or hospital appointment at the time of submission.

Inspired to Succeed

Dr. Gavin Y. Oudit, a Cardiologist and Clinician-Scientist at University of Alberta’s Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, remembers exactly what drew him to medicine.

“A striking image in my high-school biology book of William Harvey describing the newly understood circulatory system in a human arm,” he says. “His work is one of the most seminal in all of science. I’ve always been impressed by what he did.”

Inspired by the world’s great scientists, Dr. Oudit is examining whether low levels of the ACE2 enzyme speed the progression of heart failure, and whether human recombinant ACE2 may be a potential therapy. Acute heart failure is a serious disease with a high incidence and death rate. No approved therapy exists—many new drugs have failed: only supportive treatment (oxygen, diuretics, etc.) is available.

“We hope our approach will make a positive difference,” says Dr. Oudit. “Our first paper, in Nature in 2002, was a breakthrough publication and we’ve made impressive progress since then. We are now entering a Phase II clinical trial using the enzyme in patients with acute heart failure.”

One of Dr. Oudit’s goals is to focus on translational medicine using basic science and all its modern-day tools to tackle disease in ways that were not possible in the past. Already, his research spans from fundamental molecular advances in ACE2 biology to the physiological and pathological implications of modifying the enzyme for clinical applications.