BME Seminar Series: Mario Delmar, MD, PhD, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Mario Delmar, MD, PhD
Professor
The Leon H Charney Division of Cardiology
NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Abstract:

"Sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes: The case of ARVC"

Plakophilin-2 (PKP2) is a protein of the desmosome, an intercellular adhesion structure. Mutations in the gene coding for PKP2 associate with most cases of gene-positive arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a disease characterized by the loss of muscle mass at the expense of fibrofatty infiltrates (predominantly in the right ventricle), ventricular arrhythmias, and high propensity for sudden death in the young. Importantly, exercise in desmosomal mutation carriers (including PKP2) significantly increases the risk of developing the cardiomyopathy, accelerates the progression to heart failure, and increases the occurrence of arrhythmias and sudden death. Current ARVC therapy is not curative, and only mildly effective in alleviating symptoms and containing disease progression. The long-term goals of my laboratory are to advance our understanding of ARVC molecular mechanisms, and to generate pre-clinical knowledge that can improve ARVC therapy and evaluation of risk. In this seminar I will present our latest findings on the molecular changes that lead to exercise-induced arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, and current studies aiming to develop safe and effective strategies for medical treatment of the affected population. 

Bio: 

Mario Delmar, MD,PhD is the Patricia M. and Robert H. Martinsen Professor of Cardiology at New York University School of Medicine.

Mario Delmar was born and raised in Mexico City. He obtained his MD from the Metropolitan University (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana) in Mexico City in 1980.  He began his PhD studies at the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politecnico Nacional; Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados) in Mexico under the advice of Dr. Carlos Mendez and completed them in 1986 under the advice of Dr. Jose Jalife, at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Syracuse.

In 1988, Dr. Delmar joined the Faculty at SUNY-Syracuse as Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 1993 and to full Professor in 1998. In 2008 he joined the University of Michigan as the Frank N Wilson Professor of Cardiology and Co-Director of the Center for Arrhythmia Research.  In 2010 he moved to New York University as Professor of Medicine with Tenure and in 2015 he received the Martinsen Endowed Chair and was named the Patricia M. and Robert H. Martinsen Professor of Cardiology.

Dr. Delmar has published over 170 papers (h index: 66; more than 12,000 citations), and his research has been supported by NIH, without interruption, since 1988 (more than 30 years of continuous NIH funding).  At present, Dr. Delmar is Principal Investigator in one NIH-RO1, is the North American Coordinator of a Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence (Prof. Connie Bezzina, European Coordinator) and is the recipient of an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from NIH-NHLBI (2022-2027).  

Through the years, Dr. Delmar has trained more than 30 post-doctoral fellows and 20 graduate students. Trainees in the Delmar lab have received multiple awards while in training, including Fellowships from NASPE (1995, 2003), HRS (2005, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020) and AHA (1996, 1997, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2015, 2109, 2021), recognitions for “Best paper of the Year” in Heart Rhythm (2005, 2012) and in Cardiovascular Research (2017), and several Young Investigator Awards including the SADS Foundation Young investigator Award in Basic Sciences (2019, 2022).

Dr. Delmar has served and continuous to serve the Heart Rhythm Society and the American Heart Association in several capacities, most recently as member of the Program Committee for the HRS scientific sessions (2014-2019) and team leader of the basic/translational science subcommittee (2019), as a member of the HRS Research Committee (2019-2021) and as a member of the Oversight Advisory Committee for the Arrhythmia and Sudden Cardiac Death Strategically Focused Network of the American Heart Association (2019-present). He also served as President of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society (2018-2020).

Dr. Delmar has served in multiple NIH study sections, beginning in 1997, and most recently as a member of the Electrical Signaling, Ion Transport and Arrhythmias (ESTA) Study Section of the NIH (2017-2021) and as Chair of the MPPB Study Section (2021-2023). He is also a frequent ad hoc grant reviewer for several European organizations including the Medical Research Council (UK), the European Research Council, the European Commission, and the Dutch Heart Foundation (NL).

Dr. Delmar served as Associate Editor of the Am J Physiol (Heart Circ. Physiol.), and is an Editorial Board member for Circulation Research and for Heart Rhythm Journal, as well as a frequent reviewer for high impact journals.

Dr. Delmar has received multiple honors including being named the Giovanni Battista Morgagni Lecturer of University of Padova (2011), the Keynote Speaker of the International Gap Junctions Conference (2011), the Gordon K Moe lecturer for the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society Annual meeting (in 2016), and the Michel Mirowski MD Lecturer in Cardiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2022). The work of his laboratory has been recognized three times with the “Basic Research Prize” granted by The Zurich Heart House to the best published paper in ARVC (2016, 2019, 2022).  Most recently, Dr. Delmar was honored by the Heart Rhtyhm Society by conferring to him the 2020 Distinguished Scientist Award, and by the National Institutes of Health with an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award (2022).

Dr. Delmar has been a Visiting Professor at University of Utrecht, NL and most recently, at University of Copenhagen, DK (2020-2021). He is an Elected Fellow of the American Heart Association, an Elected Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society and an Elected Founding Member of the European Cardiac Arrhythmia Society; his research interest is on the cellular/molecular mechanisms leading to sudden cardiac death in inheritable arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy syndromes, with a primary focus on arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC).