ICL Celebrates AMMC Poster Success

Congratulations to Natalia Smoktunowicz winner of the Triple Red sponsored Poster Prize at the Alternative Muscle and Motors Club (AMMC) at the University of Kent last week.

Natalia joined Professor Marston’s group at Myocardial Function, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London last year as a postdoctoral research associate. The aim of her research is to investigate potential novel disease-causing mutations and their functional consequences in Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM). DCM, a condition characterised by dilatation and impaired contraction of the ventricles, is the most common cardiomyopathy and a prevalent cause of heart failure. At least 40% of human DCM cases are genetically inherited (familial DCM; FDCM) and mutations in giant sarcomeric proteins are implicated in the DCM phenotype. Using heart tissue from DCM patients she identified the mutations in the giant cardiac sarcomeric proteins i.e. obscurin and titin, and characterised their expression on protein level. She and her colleagues subsequently studied the impact of these mutations on heart muscle function in order to dissect the pathomechanisms of DCM. 

Researchers from Imperial college won all three awards; in second place was Tom Owen with his poster “Characterisation of sudden death pathologies in the E99K actin mouse model of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy” and “Primary effects of HCM mutations in humans and cats” presented by Dr Andrew Messer received third prize.