Arjun Deb, M.D.

Heart attack is the leading cause of heart failure, which kills more than 600,000 people in the U.S. each year. The 5-year survival rate once a diagnosis of heart failure is made is only 50% and there currently are no drugs that improve the heart’s repair process after a heart attack. 

Deb seeks to reduce heart failure rates by developing new treatments that drive tissue repair in the heart and reduce scarring. To accomplish this, he examines the basic mechanisms of wound healing and studies how heart muscle cells scar after acute or chronic injury. 

Reversing or preventing scar tissue from forming after a heart attack remains one of the major challenges of cardiovascular medicine; scar tissue is a leading cause of irregular heartbeat, heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Deb has engineered a monoclonal antibody targeting a specific ectonucleotidase and shown that it exerts pleiotropic beneficial effects and enhances cardiac function after injury of the heart. He is now working to bring this therapeutic candidate to clinical trials in humans. 

Because the mechanisms that regulate wound healing have remarkable overlap in most organs, Deb's research could benefit patients with a range of injuries and conditions such as diabetes and chronic kidney disease. He is working to identify the metabolic cues that regulate tissue repair across multiple organs to inform the development of innovative therapies for patients with these diseases.