# Toward a Mechanism-Based Approach to Treating Cardiac Arrhythmia

> **NIH NIH R35** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · $1,020,000

## Abstract

Sudden cardiac death due to ventricular arrhythmias is a major public health problem, accounting for 10-20%
of all deaths in adults in the US. Current predictors can identify patient subsets at high risk, but unfortunately
sudden death is the first manifestation of heart disease in up to half the victims. Costly implantable defibrillators
in high-risk patients are the only real therapeutic option at present. Conventional anti-arrhythmic drug therapy
targeting membrane ion channels has either no survival benefit or even increases mortality. Thus, a key
challenge in the arrhythmia field is to understand fundamental mechanisms in order to find better ways to
predict and treat ventricular arrhythmias. Since the pharmaceutical industry has all but abandoned drug
development for cardiac arrhythmia, in 2018 there are fewer antiarrhythmic agents available for clinical use
than 20 years ago. Hence, another key challenge for academia is to improve the efficacy of existing
antiarrhythmic drugs and find new compounds that could be developed therapeutically.
The overall vision of my R35 research program is to better understand molecular and cellular mechanisms
responsible for arrhythmia and to use this knowledge to improve the care of patients with arrhythmia disorders.
To accomplish this vision, the proposed research program will build on our prior accomplishments (e.g, finding
new treatments for catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia or developing human induced
pluripotent stem cells as better tools for arrhythmia research) to pioneer discovery in three areas: (1)
Discovery of new arrhythmia mechanisms; (2) Discovery of new antiarrhythmic treatments; and (3)
Development of new approaches to individualize care of patients with arrhythmia disorders.
Accomplishing these goals will provide major conceptual advances for our understanding of the
pathophysiology and treatment of acquired and inherited arrhythmia syndromes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10137300
- **Project number:** 5R35HL144980-03
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Bjorn C Knollmann
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,020,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-03-06 → 2026-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10137300

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10137300, Toward a Mechanism-Based Approach to Treating Cardiac Arrhythmia (5R35HL144980-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10137300. Licensed CC0.

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