CVI News: Justin Berger, MD, PhD Received the AHA Career Development Award

The American Heart Association awarded Justin H. Berger, MD, PhD, a three-year Career Development Award for his project, Probing the Mechanism of SGLT2 Inhibitors in Heart Failure. The newest addition to the heart failure treatment armamentarium, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors were originally designed as diabetes drugs before serendipitously showing profound benefit to heart failure patients through a currently unknown mechanism.

This grant will support his research with mentor Dr. Daniel P. Kelly to understand how these drugs confer benefit in heart failure. Novel therapies, which work outside current treatment paradigms, may prove more beneficial in treating pediatric patients than currently available medications. Dr. Berger is an instructor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. As part of the grant, an integrated career-development plan including CHOP and Penn CVI mentors Zolt Arany, MD, PhD, and Liming Pei, PhD, aims to facilitate his transition to scientific independence.