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Molecular Mechanisms Of Cardiometabolic Diseases

Cardiometabolic diseases are the most common cause of death worldwide. The main goal of our group is to identify novel molecular mechanisms of development of calcific aortic valve disease and to reveal the effects of maternal cardiometabolic diseases on placental molecular processes and metabolic programming. Molecular mechanisms of calcific aortic valve disease: Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common form of valvular heart disease and the second-leading cause of cardiovascular mortality. CAVD is a slowly progressing disorder that ranges from mild valve thickening to severe calcification called aortic stenosis. There is no pharmacologic treatment for CAVD and only curative therapy of the disease is valve replacement. In our research, we provide translational insights in the development of aortic stenosis allowing identification of novel target therapies and diagnostic tools for CAVD. The effects of maternal cardiometabolic diseases on placental molecular processes and metabolic reprogramming: There is an increasing number of obese women of reproductive age, thus maternal overweight and obesity are resulting in negative outcomes for both women and foetuses including gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and preterm birth. Growing evidence links individuals susceptibility to chronic disease in adult life to events during his/her intrauterine phase of development. Our aim is to determine how maternal cardiometabolic disorders affect placental molecular processes and metabolic programming. The study material is obtained from Kuopio Birth Cohort platform (www.KuBiCo.fi).

Timo Lakka (timo.lakka@uef.fi)

Timo Lakka is a Professor of Medical Physiology at University of Eastern Finland, a Specialist in Internal Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor of Public Health. His research is focused on the identification of individuals at increased risk of overweight, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases and the prevention of these diseases and conditions by increasing physical activity and improving diet since childhood. He is a Principal Investigator in the Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) study and a Co-Principal Investigator in the Stop Diabetes (StopDia) study and the Dose Responses to Exercise Training (DR’s EXTRA) study. He has also acted as a senior researcher in many other large-scale lifestyle intervention studies, long-term epidemiological follow-up studies, and wide international genetic-epidemiological studies. He has published over 360 scientific articles in international journals, and these articles have almost 60 000 citations and a h-index of 106 (Google Scholar). He has supervised 24 doctoral theses and is a supervisor of another 13 doctoral students.