Speaker Profile
M.D., Chief of Cardiology, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital; Maurice Eliaser Distinguished Professor of Medicine, UCSF
Biography
Dr. Peter Ganz is the Chief of Cardiology at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Maurice Eliaser Distinguished Professor at UCSF. Dr. Ganz has been a pioneer in translational cardiovascular research. He was the first to publish on vascular endothelial function in health and its dysfunction in atherosclerosis in humans (N Engl J Med 1986; 315:1046-1051). Currently, Dr. Ganz is making important discoveries in the field of proteomics, using modified aptamers as binding reagents to quantify proteins in blood (JAMA 2016;315:2532-2541). Relevant to his presentation, he is improving assessment of drug safety through proteomics (http://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.028213). Dr. Ganz received his M.D. from Harvard, completed his residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiovascular fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He spent 25 years directing cardiovascular research in the cardiac catheterization laboratories at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, prior to arriving to UCSF in 2008.
Presentation Title and Company Description
Clinical Dx Showcase: Proteomics: Making Drug Development Safer for Patients
Early detection of harmful effects of novel drug treatments and their mechanistic understanding might improve the safety of drug development. ILLUMINATE was a trial of torcetrapib, a cholesterol ester transfer protein inhibitor, which raised HDL-C and lowered LDL-C. The trial was terminated due to unforeseen increases in cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality. In a retrospective analysis of baseline and on-treatment blood samples from ILLUMINATE, a large-scale proteomic analysis detected harm from torcetrapib at 3 months of treatment, before it became apparent clinically. Proteomic analysis revealed unexpected alterations in inflammatory and immune functions by torcetrapib and also explained the previously reported activation of aldosterone. Implications: A longitudinal survey of the proteome in blood samples can provide an early warning of unforeseen harm from drug therapies as well as inform responsible biological mechanisms. Proteomics may be useful in improving the safety and efficiency of drug development.
