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Article History

Received: 14 December 2016

Accepted: 16 August 2017

First Online: 29 August 2017

Authors’ information

: Mario Deng (Senior author): As a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University (1992/1993), I carried out gene expression studies of proinflammatory cytokines in the rat heart transplantation model. As the Medical Director of the Interdisciplinary Heart Failure & Transplantation Program at Muenster University (1992–2000), subsequently as Director of Cardiac Transplantation Research at Columbia University (2000–2011), as past Medical Director of the Mechanical Circulatory Support Device Database of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (2001–2006) and Medical Director of the UCLA Advanced Heart Failure/Mechanical Support/Heart Transplant program (2011–2016), I maintain a core position at the intersection between clinical cardiology and bench-to-bedside translational research. As PI/Co-PI of continuously since >20 years federally, philanthropy- and industry- funded grants, I co-developed the first diagnostic leukocyte gene expression profiling (GEP) test in transplantation medicine that gained US-FDA-regulatory clearance to rule out rejection without tissue biopsies (AlloMap™). Based on this success, my lab was invited by the NIH/US-Critical Illness and Injury Trials Group (USCIITG) to develop a GEP-test for improved outcomes in patients with organ dysfunction related to advanced heart failure. In my Columbia University lab, we demonstrated the feasibility of using leukocyte GEP to monitor patients after cardiac surgery for the multiorgan dysfunction syndrome. Following the transition to UCLA, we are now expanding on this work to develop a genomic blood test to better predict outcomes and survival benefit in patients with various forms of heart failure (MyLeukoMAP™).

: The study was conducted under UCLA IRB 12–000351 approval and all patients signed informed consent to participate.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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