What Has Our Cardiac Team Been Up To?

Cardiac researchers Kathryn Byerly and Cayla Wolfe were world travelers this month, traveling across the nation and all the way to South America to represent the Norris Lab and present their research.

Kathryn Byerly and Cayla Wolfe

The PRIMA (Preventing Rheumatic Injury bioMarker Alliance) Network held a meeting in Brazil, supported by the Leducq Foundation. This international collaboration brings together scientists and doctors from Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Nepal, Tanzania, and Uganda to better understand rheumatic heart disease, a condition that develops when strep throat is not diagnosed and treated in time. Because of this, it mainly affects people in low- and middle-income countries. The PRIMA Network is working to uncover how the disease progresses from acute rheumatic fever to chronic heart problems and to identify biomarkers that could help with earlier detection and treatment.

At the PRIMA meeting in Brazil, the Norris Lab presented research using mouse models and patient samples from PRIMA clinical sites to understand how strep infections can lead to rheumatic heart disease. When mice were exposed to strep bacteria, their heart valves and tissue developed scarring, inflammation, and abnormal collagen (the protein that gives structure to tissue). These changes caused the hearts to look and function differently compared to healthy mice. Using advanced imaging, the team was able to measure these effects see clear differences between exposed and unexposed mice. Their findings suggest the mouse model successfully replicates human rheumatic heart disease and presents exciting opportunities to research why a bacterial infection can cause heart problems and look for a biomarker to better diagnose and treat these patients in low-income countries.

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At the FASEB Septins: Spacial Regulators of Cell Biology Conference, the team presented variations of the talks they gave at ASIP in April. Cardiac researcher Cayla Wolfe shared a poster on the expression pattern of Dchs1, while MD PhD candidate Kathryn Byerly presented a poster on the functional studies of Dchs1 in cardiac development. And, they got to visit Niagara Falls, New York!

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In other news, PhD candidate Brian Loizzi exhibited a poster detailing his research on linking ciliogenesis, bromodomain function, and acetylation in valvulogenesis at the Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference 2025 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this past summer.

Brian’s work in the Norris Lab examines how tiny cell structures called primary cilia contribute to the development of heart valves. These cilia are essential for valve formation, and losing them during development may play a role in mitral valve prolapse (MVP), a condition where the mitral valve doesn’t close properly that affects 2–3% of the population. To better understand this process, the team studied a protein called DZIP1, previously shown to be important for ciliary function, and used a screening approach to identify other proteins that interact with it. They discovered that BRD10, a protein that interacts with structural elements of the primary cilia, directly interacts with DZIP1, is found in the same parts of the cell, and is active at the same time during valve development. These findings suggest that DZIP1 and BRD10 work together to regulate primary cilia, shedding light on how problems with cilia can disrupt valve development and potentially lead to MVP.

Accompanied by Dr. Norris, Brian also attended a series of lectures on heart development and disease. He described the conference as "a fantastic networking opportunity with experts in the field where they learned about innovative and noteworthy developments in cardiology and cardiac research." Overall, it was both an excellent learning experience and a valuable opportunity to share his work with the broader cardiac research community.

For a closer look at their findings, visit our blog.

See Blog Post

-- The Norris Lab