Megan Lancaster, MD, PhD, receives AHA Innovative Project Award to advance cardiomyopathy research

Megan Lancaster, MD, PhD, has received an American Heart Association (AHA) Innovative Project Award to support her research into the genetic drivers of cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. This award recognizes Dr. Lancaster’s forward-looking research strategy and its potential to shape the future of cardiovascular care. 

Her project, “A Regulatory-First Framework to Reveal Noncoding Cardiomyopathy,” focuses on uncovering previously unrecognized genetic contributors to heart disease, addressing a major gap in current research by examining the noncoding regions of the genome – areas that have historically been underexplored but may play a significant role in disease risk. She’ll complete the study by using: 

• Advanced computational approaches and large-scale human biobank data to integrate deep-learning–based prediction models with ancestry-aware data sets to identify variants that may influence how key cardiomyopathy genes are regulated.
• An approach that allows for prioritization of variants not only for their predicted biological impact, but also for their potential clinical relevance. 
• Developed cardiac regulatory networks to generate new, testable hypotheses that can inform future functional studies and therapeutic development.
• Methods to improve diagnostic precision and expand understanding of inherited cardiomyopathy, particularly in populations that have been historically underrepresented in genetic research. 

Dr. Lancaster’s high-impact research has the potential to lead to critical discoveries and treatment advancements for the proportion of individuals with the variant that will develop into disease.