The goal is to discover new regulatory mechanisms of cardiac function in order to treat cardiovascular diseases in a more gender-specific and thus better way. Male and female hearts are different even in healthy people, e.g. with regard to metabolism and gene regulation in the cells. Hence cardiovascular diseases can also differ according to gender.

Using induced pluripotent stem cells from healthy male and female volunteers, cardiac muscle and connective tissue cells will be cultivated to investigate the extent to which, for example, cell contractions, ionic currents as well as gene regulation differ in a gender-specific manner. The young researcher and her team will therefore receive 1.65 million euros from the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) for their study.

Source:
https://dzhk.de/aktuelles/news/artikel/frauen-und-maenner-herzen-was-ist-anders/