UM, specifically CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases, is one of the top institutes for translational cardiovascular research in Europe. CARIM is among the world leaders in the fields of research in vascular and thrombotic disorders and atrial fibrillation, as well as translational heart failure research. CARIM plays an important role in public-private research partnerships as the main author and project manager of 6 out of 7 cardiovascular projects of the Center for Translational Medicine (CTMM) in The Netherlands. CTMM is a public-private consortium that comprises Universities, Academic Medical Centres, Medical Technology enterprises and Chemical and Pharmaceutical companies.
The coordinator of UM in RESETageing is Dr. Leon de Windt. Leon ́s lab has done significant contributions in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing age-related cardiovascular diseases (e.g. heart failure), in particular, how cellular differentiation and morphogenesis programs are affected in processes leading to heart failure18. His group has extensive experience in modern genetic techniques to generate and characterize transgenic/knockout mouse models, proficiency in invoking and analyzing heart failure and/or cardiomyocyte apoptosis in mouse models by surgical induction of pressure overload or regional infarction, and various cell culture techniques including the proficiency in generating lentiviral and adenoviral vectors for primary cardiomyocyte cultures. UM will be further represented in RESETageing project by Dr. Paula Martins who is interested in the study of heart cellular communication.