EU research consortium CATCH ME

Summary

CATCH ME aims to improve the prevention and treatment of atrial fibrillation and its complications. The goal is to develop and validate better disease management strategies based on the improved understanding of the main health modifiers (such as genes, drugs, and behaviour) leading to atrial fibrillation in the European population.

The CATCH ME partners combine excellence in clinical practice, translational pathophysiology, genetics, bioengineering, epidemiology and biostatistics with competence in the development of cardiovascular practice guidelines. As a consortium, CATCH ME also has access to large sets of human biological specimens (atrial tissue and blood samples) and carefully phenotyped patient populations. This is the basis to define the major causes and risk factors (“health modifiers”) of AF in Europe and characterise distinct clinical types of AF to advance future personalised strategies for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of AF patients. AFNET will bring its competence in ethical issues as well as training programs and science communication in order to disseminate and popularize the results.

Publication

Zeemering S, Isaacs A, Winters J, Maesen B, Bidar E, Dimopoulou C, Guasch E, Batlle M, Haase D, Hatem S, Kara M, Kääb S, Mont L, Sinner M, Wakili R, Maessen J, Crijns HJGM, Fabritz L, Kirchhof P. Stoll M, Schotten S. Atrial fibrillation in the presence and absence of heart failure enhances expression of genes involved in cardomyocyte structure, conduction properties, fibrosis, inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction. HeartRhythm Journal, 21 August 2022. doi: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2022.08.019