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.

Dr. Zamaneh Kassiri

Zamaneh Kassiri

Driven by Science

Zamaneh Kassiri, Assistant Professor at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, became interested in the cardiovascular system after taking a general physiology course in her second year of university. This drove her to pursue her graduate training in exploring different aspects of the cardiovascular science. Had she not stayed in basic science, her discoveries on cardiac inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinases (TIMPs) would not be making waves.

The mechanism that connects the heart's cells and synchronizes them into one working pump is a network called the extracellular matrix (ECM). Kassiri and her team are studying the TIMPs that regulate the ECM's integrity by controlling the function of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and the balance between the two that the ECM must maintain to function disease-free.

Kassiri and her team have found that TIMP levels are reduced in injured hearts. They have also identified each of the four TIMPs that contribute differently to the maintenance of the ECM. In a breakthrough experiment, the team is injecting individual TIMPs into hearts to validate the effects before trying various combinations to establish the best results.

Since infarcted human hearts also show a reduction in TIMPs, Kassiri believes the hypothesis will hold true at clinical trials. This approach is significant because it could reverse the condition instead of maintaining the status quo. It is also different because it targets structural remodelling rather than signalling pathways.

"It's a good day when experiments work," she says."Because they don't always. That's why it's called research."