The Kehat Lab

תמונה ראשית - קהת

The Kehat Lab

The Molecular Mechanisms Responsible for Cardiac Hypertrophy

Principal Investigator(s): Professor Itzhak Kehat

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a worldwide epidemic. It is estimated, for example, that in Europe around 10 million people are suffering from this disease. Despite some progress in medical treatment within the last 10 years, morbidity and mortality of CHF are still high: 70-80% of patients suffering from heart failure will die within the next 8 years. Our lab studies the molecular mechanisms responsible for cardiac hypertrophy and remodeling during heart failure. Specifically, we focus on the maintenance of the sarcomere, the epigenetic modifications that control gene expression in the heart, and on the mechanisms that differentially control concentric and eccentric cardiac growth in order to suggest additional targets for treating human disease. We are also trying to elucidate the molecular mechanisms responsible for vascular and valve calcifications and find novel approaches to stop this devastating process.

The Kehat Lab

Professor Itzhak Kehat

Professor Izhak Kehat is an Attending Cardiologist in the Echo Lab in the Department of Cardiology at Rambam Health Care Campus. He also heads the Cardiovascular System Biology Lab at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Molecular Cardiology Lab of the Clinical Research Institute at Rambam (CRIR). In addition, he is an Assistant Professor at the Technion.

Professor Kehat graduated from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine in 1997 (summa cum laude), and received his PhD from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, studying cardiomyocytes from human embryonic stem cells, in 2005. He completed his residency in internal medicine in 2006 at Rambam, and a Fellowship in Cardiology, also at Rambam (2011). He performed post-doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Jeffery Molkentin at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2006-2010).