Rebekah Gundry, PhD, receives NHLBI award

The first time Rebekah Gundry, PhD, saw beating heart cells in the lab, it took her breath away.

Dr. Gundry was in her post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins University and learning how to turn stem cells into heart cells. It’s a moment she said she will never forget. A few years later, she had another similar moment when meeting a patient who had just received a heart pump and as a result, a reinvigorated outlook on life.

“You think of the organ conceptually, but to see the cells beating in front of you, and later to see the impact that technology can have on a person’s quality of life, those are show-stopping moments,” said Dr. Gundry, professor and vice chair of cellular and integrative physiology, assistant chief of basic and translational research in the division of cardiovascular medicine and director of the CardiOmics program for the Center for Heart and Vascular Research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Dr. Gundry’s fascination with cardiovascular research grew out of her personal encounters with family members who suffered from heart disease, and an overall interest in the technological innovations that improve the lives of patients suffering from advanced heart failure.

She recently received the prestigious R35 Emerging Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award is a seven-year, $5.3 million grant that will fund her latest project — “Harnessing Glycoproteomics and Glycomics to Understand Cardiac Biology and Disease.”

A self-described techie, Dr. Gundry has focused her research on developing new strategies to enhance the utility of stem cell derived cardiomyocytes for accurate drug testing and disease modeling. Her goal? To discover new strategies for treating advanced heart failure.

Her research program also develops and applies innovative mass spectrometry technologies and bioinformatics tools to transform our understanding of cell surface glycoproteins and glycans.

“This award is just fabulous for Dr. Gundry, for our department, for the Center for Heart and Vascular Research, and for the university,” said Merry Lindsey, PhD, chair of cellular and integrative physiology and director of the Center for Heart and Vascular Research. “This award helps to cement our growing national reputation for superior research on cardiovascular disease.”

“I know Dr. Gundry’s research is outstanding; it’s just nice to see the NIH review panel and NHLBI leadership agree,” said Daniel Anderson, MD, PhD, chief of cardiovascular medicine in the UNMC Department of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Gundry is one of only a few scientists nationwide, and the first at UNMC, to receive an NHLBI Emerging Investigator Award, which requires applicants to be principal investigator on two active R01-equivalent awards at the time of application.

The award is intended to support a research program, rather than a research project, and promotes “scientific productivity and innovation by providing long-term support and increased flexibility” to an investigator with demonstrated and outstanding contributions to the field.