My research is focused on calcific aortic stenosis, including clinical and translational studies related to biomarker discovery, risk prediction, and elucidating pathophysiology to identify adjunctive interventions to improve patient-centered outcomes.

I am actively involved in our heart valve team, evaluating patients clinically and performing the transesophageal echocardiograms for transcatheter valve procedures. My research is centered on calcific aortic stenosis, including several clinical and translational projects. Our group uses various imaging techniques and a biobank of specimens to perform biomarker discovery and elucidate the pathobiology of aortic stenosis and the effects of pressure overload on the left ventricle and pulmonary vasculature. We have a particular interest in how diabetes affects these processes and aim to identify novel targets for adjunctive medical therapy to improve clinical outcomes in patients with aortic stenosis. Novel rehabilitation strategies targeting frailty are also an area of interest. As a heart valve center, we seek to integrate a clinical and research mission in an innovative way that informs disease paradigms and influences management guidelines in valvular heart disease.

Dr. El-Sabawi is a VGM postdoctoral fellow and a cardiovascular medicine fellow. He is originally from San Diego, CA. He completed his MD Training at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and Medical Residency at Mayo Clinic (Rochester).

Bassim's prior work has focused on optimizing outcomes of transcatheter interventions for valvular and structural heart diseases. He is now focused on identifying whether proteomic signatures of myocardial remodeling/dysfunction are present early in aortic stenosis before traditional clinical thresholds for intervention. If present, this may point to known/novel pathways contributing to heart failure in aortic stenosis patients and provide an early molecular barometer for clinical surveillance and personalized timing for aortic valve replacement.

Lea K. Davis, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Genetic Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is Associate Professor in Biomedical Informatics, Physiology & Biophysics, and in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her work explores the genomic architecture of complex traits, defined as the type, frequency, and function of DNA variants en masse that contribute to the genetic predisposition of a given trait.

Until recently, the human genetics field has been highly focused on the identification of individual DNA variants associated with complex phenotypes. However, recent research from the Davis Lab and others has demonstrated that many complex traits, including Tourette Syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder, are highly polygenic with risk distributed across hundreds or thousands of polymorphisms. Through the application of quantitative genetic methods, the Davis Lab seeks to answer questions that follow from this observation including: How does genomic architecture differ across complex human traits? What kinds of selective pressures shape the polygenic landscape of different phenotypes? How do functional elements (e.g., eQTLs, enhancers, methylation QTLs) influence or concentrate risk? How does sexual dimorphism influence the expression of polygenic burden?

The overarching goal of the Davis Lab is to integrate functional knowledge of the genome into polygenic approaches to answer such questions. To do this, the Davis Lab uses state-of-the-art computational and statistical methods to inform classical quantitative models (used for decades in animal and plant genetics) along with biologically relevant expression data, rare variant data (e.g., exome data, copy number variant data), and environmental data (e.g., prenatal infection or smoking history). Through these integrated approaches, Dr. Davis hopes to understand the biological basis and genetic architecture of common complex phenotypes.

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