Tom Rosenquist, Ph.D., UNMC vice chancellor for research, heads a $5.6 million program project grant composed of three teams of scientists that look into how genes interact with certain drugs, environmental exposures and vitamin deficiencies to cause abnormal heart development.
The five-year grant is the first National Institutes of Health-funded grant to test a unifying hypothesis for this type of gene/environment interaction.
Multiple advances in the research of congenital heart defects have been born out of the team’s work.
Click on the images below to view Dr. Rosenquist commenting on his team’s research.
Dr. Rosenquist discusses the need for research in congenital heart defects, which affect one percent of births and are the most common cause of infant deaths.
Dr. Rosenquist’s research team is a pioneer in the emerging field of gene-environment interaction. They are studying how a person’s specific genetic makeup interacts with the environment both positively and negatively to cause or prevent congenital defects.
Dr. Rosenquist discusses research that explains why some heart defects occur even when folic acid levels are high. Their research team showed that folate receptors on cells are responsible for taking folic acid into the cells and that congenital heart defects result when there are defects or mutuations of these folate receptors.