Featured Researcher

Dr. Ravi Ramasamy Receives the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Clinical Research

Ravichandran Ramasamy, PhD

In May 2004, Ravi Ramasamy, PhD, Assistant Professor of Surgical Science at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, won the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Clinical Research. The prestigious award is given to young investigators who show promise in their research studies.

Funded by two grants by the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, Dr. Ramasamy is the principal investigator of several research studies that focus on trying to understand why the heart fails or struggles to recover from myocardial infarction (heart attack). "My research explores heart failure in general. For example, myself and my research team strive to answer questions like: why are some hearts more likely to fail than others?," says Dr. Ramasamy.

In order to answer these questions, Dr. Ramasamy and his research team are exploring how the energy demands of the heart are met during a heart attack. "ATP is the molecule that gives energy to the heart to make it viable. We've identified that during a heart attack, glucose becomes the primary molecule that is metabolized to generate ATP," explains Dr. Ramasamy. "Our research has shown that in the heart there is a lot of usage of glucose through a pathway called the polyol pathway. This pathway competes with the energy producing glycolytic pathway. As a result, what happens is that you lose the capacity to generate energy. We've found that if you inhibit either of two enzymes in this pathway–aldose reductase and/or sorbitol dehydrogenase–you suddenly have immense benefit to the heart. Essentially, the heart will recover faster from a heart attack," adds Dr. Ramasamy.

Dr. Ramasamy and his colleagues put these enzymes to the test in small animal studies. Their results demonstrated that high activities of aldose reductase and sorbitol dehydrogenase extensively damaged the heart and impaired recovery from myocardial infarction. "Initially, the polyol pathway was only known to be useful in understanding diabetic complications. Nobody looked at it from the point of view of the heart. Our research team was the first to demonstrate that even in the absence of diabetes, this pathway plays a crucial role in a heart attack," says Dr. Ramasamy. Researchers have taken Dr. Ramasamy's findings in animal studies and have tested them in clinical studies in humans. Initial results have demonstrated that inhibitors of aldose reductase are clinically applicable and effective in humans suffering from diabetic cardiomyopathy.

Dr. Ramasamy and his research team are continuously probing areas of the human heart and attempting to answer new questions. Currently, he and his team are exploring if these enzymes play a role in other cardiovascular events, such as atherosclerosis, restenosis, and transplant rejection.