Jui Dave, PhD, an associate research scientist in the Greif Lab, was awarded a Career Development Award (2021-2024) from the American Heart Association (AHA). The project is titled, “NOTCH pathway regulates hypermuscularization and stenosis in elastin aortopathy.”
The early research findings suggest elastin deficiency reduces levels of DNMT1, an enzyme known to methylate DNA. Reduced DNA methylation facilitates gene activation, culminating in this case in Notch3 pathway over-activation. In mice lacking elastin, treatment with a pharmacological inhibitor of the Notch pathway known as DAPT, genetic deletion of Notch3, or SMC-specific deletion of Jag1 has a restorative effect on the aortic wall that could lead to therapeutic treatments to combat a rare heart defect known as supravalvular aortic stenosis, or SVAS.
Dave earned her PhD in medical sciences from Texas A&M University in 2014. She received her M.S. in biotechnology from Nirma University and a B.S. in biochemistry from St. Xavier's College. She is the recipient of the prestigious Brown-Coxe Fellowship, which supports postdoctoral fellows conducting biomedical research at the Yale School of Medicine and the 2017 AHA Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.