Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access

Anindita Das

Biography

Dr. Anindita Das did her graduate, post-graduation and her PhD in Science in India. Dr. Das immigrated to the U.S. in 1998 as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Radiation Biology. She established the important role of early growth response-1 protein in the regulation of radiation-induced growth suppression and apoptosis (programmed cell death) of prostate cancer cells. She continued her postdoctoral research at Ohio State University, before joining VCU in 2001 as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and then in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology. Dr. Das was appointed Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology, in 2007. She brings extensive knowledge and experience to the cardiovascular basic research labs. Dr. Das’s major area of research is the investigation and development of novel pharmacological and genetic therapeutic approaches to reduce injury in the heart following myocardial ischemia (heart attacks). Her research goal is to study the molecular signaling pathways by which pharmacological preconditioning protects the heart following ischemia-reperfusion injury. She first investigated that Viagra (sildenafil), Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, can empower the myocytes (heart cells) to cope with the damaging effects following a severe heart attack. Her work in this area has resulted in a Beginning Grant-in-Aid from the American Heart Association, Mid-Atlantic Affiliate, to investigate the Essential Role of Protein Kinase G in Sildenafil-induced Cardioprotection. The study is designed to demonstrate that there is a direct cause and effect relationship of protein kinase G and the cardioprotective effect of sildenafil in isolated mouse heart and in ventricular myocytes. The putative role of downstream signaling targets activated by sildenafil is also to be determined.

Research Interest

molecular signaling pathways, Molecular cardiology