When UConn Health research leaders think of innovation, two-decade NIH-funded cardiovascular basic scientist Kimberly Dodge-Kafka, Ph.D., immediately comes to mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI study cell signaling mechanisms that induce cardiac diseases with an aim to someday stop them in their tracks,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka.<\/p>\n
Dodge-Kafka says everyone experiences a fight or flight feeling at times. This bodily response is actually your heart\u2019s beta-adrenergic receptors hard at work. Via a pathway these proteins work to increase calcium signaling inside cells which can increase your heart rate, heart muscle\u2019s contractibility, and your elevated response to the stressors around you, good during exercise, but potentially dangerous in the context of heart disease.<\/p>\n
In May Dodge-Kafka received large NIH grant award funding to grow her novel research program challenging the status quo of current scientific knowledge when it comes to cardiac cell signaling and medication intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hypothesize medications such as commonly used beta-blockers for heart disease patients may be primarily targeting the wrong subset of adrenaline receptors,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka. \u201cThese medications only target the plasma membranes on cells to slow down the heart\u2019s contractibility. While they can show some improvement for heart disease, they are not completely effective and can be improved upon. The receptors we should be treating for disease are intracellular, associated with the cell\u2019s nucleus, where the genes responsible for induction of disease are located.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dodge-Kafka\u2019s research pursuit is going against the current dogma about beta-blockers and innovatively rethinking the heart medication\u2019s use as an intervention tool. She is finding a new target to cellularly aim to prevent heart disease progression.<\/p>\n
In her cell-based research lab Dodge-Kafka and her team are using a combination of high-tech research approaches from live cell imaging to isolate and observe cardiomyocyte behavior to using spectrometry sensors for monitoring calcium surrounding the nucleus of heart cells.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking our laboratory findings to try to identify a new drug to stop heart disease that targets beta receptors inside cells,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka. \u201cWe have already developed and tested a few promising drugs in mice models that might work!\u201d<\/p>\n
And there is one big goal in Dodge-Kafka\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy big hope is to develop a new type of beta-blocker drug for humans that can block or reverse heart disease progression so patients can live a better, fuller, and longer life,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka.<\/p>\n
For example, one of Dodge-Kafka\u2019s research models mimics the effects of high blood pressure. Persistent stress on the heart from high blood pressure, may take a while, but eventually a person will develop hypertrophic remodeling, a thickened and enlarged heart, as a result. According to Dodge-Kafka, if you don\u2019t pay attention to high blood pressure and leave it untreated you will develop congestive heart failure (CHF) with heart muscle cells dying.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut our research shows in the hypertrophic phase we can block heart disease progression or even reverse disease!\u201d exclaims Dodge-Kafka. \u201cIf proven successful in clinical trials, our research would be a huge gamechanger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dodge-Kafka\u2019s new multimillion dollar NIH research grant awarded May 24 is for 4 years in collaboration with Stanford University research collaborator Dr. Michael Kapiloff.<\/p>\n
Why UConn?<\/strong> She chose to join UConn to be a part of its innovation.<\/p>\n \u201cI was recruited when UConn Health was just starting the Calhoun Cardiology Center,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka. \u201cI was intrigued by its plans to combine clinical care and translational science together in one center with strong basic science too.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, she was named Assistant Dean for Research Planning. Plus, in 2022, she began directing the MD\/PhD combined degree program training the next generation of physician-scientists at UConn School of Medicine.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoy the MD\/PhD program and working with students who want to become physician-scientists. We are working hard to grow the program. We have a whole team focused on this,\u201d she reports.<\/p>\n Interestingly, Dodge-Kafka has a degree in Zoology from Texas A&M University and earned her Ph.D. in signal transduction from the University of Texas Science Center. Her postdoctoral training was performed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Vollum Institute, and Oregon Health and Science University in defining the function of the mAKAP complex in the heart.<\/p>\n \u201cKim is a fantastic, innovative scientist as much as she is a great administrator,\u201d applauds Anthony T. Vella, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Immunology and the senior associate dean of research planning and coordination at the School of Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMy big hope is to develop a new type of beta-blocker drug for humans that can block or reverse heart disease progression so patients can live a better, fuller, and longer life,\u201d says Dodge-Kafka, a recent recipient of a large multimillion dollar NIH grant to grow her novel cardiac cell signaling research. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":200618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1969,2076,1868,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-200496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiology","category-research","category-meds","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 05:14:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200619,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200496\/revisions\/200619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/200618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200496"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=200496"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=200496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDodge-Kafka joined UConn School of Medicine in 2003 and has steadily risen through the ranks to be a Professor of Cell Biology at UConn Health in the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center in its basic science arm.<\/p>\n