荔枝视频

Cardiac amyloidosis is a heart condition where abnormal proteins build up in the heart muscle, forming deposits that make the heart thicker and less flexible. Over time, the condition can lead to heart failure.

Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) is a specific type of amyloidosis linked to a protein found in the blood. Normally, four units of transthyretin assemble into the functional protein, but in some people mutations in transthyretin can cause it to fall apart and accumulate in the heart.

Because the disorder often has few symptoms, it can go undiagnosed for years, making treatment less effective.

Dr. Scott Ryan, PhD, an associate professor in the Dept. of Clinical Neuroscience at the Cumming School of Medicine and a new member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute, is working to change that.

鈥淭he goal of my research is to understand the process by which transthyretin breaks down and accumulates, with the ultimate goal of early diagnosis,鈥� says Ryan. 鈥淚deally, we would like to find a biomarker that would allow us to identify and treat people early. This would potentially save many lives.鈥� 

Ryan notes that effective drug therapies exist for ATTR-CM, but if the disease is detected late, patients may only live a few years after starting treatment.

Ryan鈥檚 path to the 荔枝视频 (U荔枝视频) spans decades of research. During his graduate years, he studied neuroscience at the University of Ottawa, developing methods to investigate lipid metabolism in neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. His postdoctoral work focused on movement disorders and Parkinson鈥檚 disease, including stem cell-based models in California.

He joined the faculty in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph in 2014 and was recruited to U荔枝视频 in 2023, where he now focuses on the mechanisms that underlie protein misfolding and pathological aggregation in multiple disorders.

At the Libin Cardiovascular Institute, Ryan collaborates closely with Dr. Nowell Fine, MD, PhD, a clinician-researcher specializing in cardiac amyloidosis. Together, they are building a bio-registry to facilitate research into the biochemistry behind amyloidosis.

Ryan is also open to other research collaborations.