Despite much research on cardiovascular disease (CVD), it remains the leading cause of death.

The most common type of CVD is when artery walls thicken in specific regions called plaques, which are filled with fatty substances and inflammatory cells. When these rupture, they liberate their contents and this triggers blood clotting, which then blocks blood flow. When this happens in the brain, it results in a type of stroke; when it happens in the heart, it causes a heart attack when part of the heart muscle dies. Both can result in death.

We are aware of a number of risk factors for heart attacks, such as smoking, drinking excess alcohol, diabetes, high blood pressure or cholesterol. Researchers at the University of Malta (UM) have contributed to research in this field since 2008 in a study on around 1,000 individuals of Maltese ethnicity – 400 of them had a heart attack (cases) and 400 of them did not (controls), together with over 80 families.

This is the Maltese Acute Myocardial Infarction or MAMI Study which was nationally funded through MCST R&I funds. Many tests have been carried out on these samples, including the entire genetic sequence or whole genome sequence, making this study one of the most promising to help identify new therapies to prevent heart attacks.

Many tests have been carried out on these samples, including the entire genetic sequence or whole genome sequence, making this study one of the most promising to help identify new therapies to prevent heart attacks

The European Innovation Council has recently awarded to the University of Malta, which has partnered with Leiden University Medical Centre, four million Euros to conduct research to find better ways to identify people at risk early on, and to find novel drug targets to prevent heart attacks.

In this new project called ‘TargetMI: A Multi-Omics Approach for Novel Drug Targets, Biomarkers and Risk Algorithms for Myocardial Infarction’, levels of thousands of molecules (RNA, proteins and metabolites) in blood will be measured and compared to find differences between those who had a heart attack and those who did not. Genetic factors contributing to these differences will then be identified.

The TargetMI team will work closely with a UM team of bioinformaticians from the project ‘BioGeMT:Bioinformatics for Genomics in Malta’ to analyse this data computationally, to find these patterns of differences in cases and controls.

Stephanie Bezzina Wettinger is the principal investigator and coordinator of TargetMI and the MAMI Study. TargetMI and BioGeMT are funded by the European Union.

Sound Bites

•        New research reaffirms that human footprints found in White Sands National Park, New Mexico (US), date to the Last Glacial Maximum, placing humans in North America thousands of years earlier than once thought.  In September 2021, scientists announced that ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. This discovery pushed the known date of human presence in North America back by thousands of years and implied that early inhabitants and megafauna co-existed for several millennia before the terminal Pleistocene extinction event. In a follow-up study, researchers used two new independent approaches to date the footprints, both of which resulted in the same age range as the original estimate.

•        Researchers have designed a tabletop-sized vaccine printer that could be scaled up to produce hundreds of vaccine doses in a day, and deployed anywhere vaccines are needed. The vaccine doses are contained within micro-needle patches that can be stored long term at room temperature and applied to the skin, avoiding the need for injections.

For more soundbites, listen to Radio Mocha every Saturday at 7.30pm on Radju Malta and the following Monday at 9pm on Radju Malta 2 https://www.fb.com/RadioMochaMalta/.

DID YOU KNOW?

•        One species of African crocodile moos like a cow.

•        Earlier this year, a Harvard researcher of dishonesty was put on leave due to allegations of fraud in her work.

•        The word ‘ejaculate’ comes from the Latin ‘iaculum’ which means ‘javelin’.

•        Some plants evolved to become carnivorous when they did not get enough nutrients from the soil.

For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think.