Members of the Cardiolinc Network, coordinated by the Cardiovascular Research Unit of Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), received 1.8 Million Euro funding through the Eurostars programme for a 3-year project aiming at developing an in vitro diagnostic assay for prognostication of patients with acute myocardial infarction.

The research programme named MiPROG was launched on 4^th December and involves, next to the Cardiovascular Research Unit, the biotech companies Firalis (Huningue, France) and Life Sequencing (Valencia, Spain) as well as the Medical School of Hannover (Hannover, Germany).

Heart failure is a life-threatening condition affecting nearly 15 million people in Europe. Following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI), a significant proportion of patients develops heart failure due to change in shape, structure and physiology of the heart. This is associated with increased patient mortality and morbidity. Indeed, heart failure is the main cause of hospital admission in EU and the prognosis remains poor with 60-70% death rates within five years in post-AMI patients. Recently, novel therapies have been introduced to prevent cardiac remodelling and preserve cardiac function. The efficacy of these novel therapies has been shown in clinical trials, denoting a revolutionary development in cardiovascular care.

Although there is an urgent need, currently no prognostic assay exists for early treatments to prevent or attenuate heart failure. The discovery and patenting of 4 microRNA signatures with significant prognostic value for heart failure in AMI patients by LIH’s Cardiovascular Research Unit paved the way to develop such a prognostic assay. In this project, the MiPROG consortium will validate and discover a complete set of prognostic microRNAs to develop an in vitro diagnostic test that will allow the risk stratification of AMI patients. This stratification will help clinicians to use a personalised treatment suitable for each individual patient in order to reduce the incidence of heart failure. The availability of such a test would allow more effective treatment and a drastic reduction of the burden of heart failure on healthcare systems.

(This news item is derived from a newsletter article edited by Firalis Group.)