May 7, 2013
Beta-blockers can keep heart failure patients alive and out of the hospital, but they only improve heart function in about 25 percent of patients. Unfortunately, characteristics such as age, gender or the cause of the heart failure do not explain beta-blocker effectiveness.
Can genetic differences predict beta-blocker effectiveness in patients with heart failure? Jasmine Talameh, PharmD, a graduate student in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, identified a genotype that could potentially be used to select patients with heart failure who would benefit from beta-blocker treatment. She also found that beta-blockers may not be as effective in African-American heart failure patients who carry a particular variation from that genotype.
Talameh received a Graduate Education Advancement Board Impact Award from the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in recognition of her work. Each year the Graduate School recognizes graduate students whose research is of exceptional benefit to North Carolina. This year forty-one Impact Awards were given out.
Her findings were based on a candidate gene study of 722 heart-failure patients with nine years of vital status follow-up. She studied eleven genetic variants in all.
Follow-up research is necessary, but these early findings suggest that testing for certain genetic variants could potentially identify patients with heart failure who would benefit from beta-blocker treatment.
“The genetic mutation that Dr. Talameh found could potentially identify heart failure patients that require additional or alternative medications to help them live longer and reduce hospitalizations,” said adviser Herb Patterson, PharmD.
Talameh entered the PhD program at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2008 after receiving her doctor of pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a first author on five publications during her time at the School. She has received several research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, and her research in the field of heart disease and heart failure has been recognized by the American College of Cardiology.
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