 Today on the heartbeat, we introduce you to a doctor who has dedicated his life to unraveling the mysteries of medicine through the lens of a microscope. Shepherding interdisciplinary teams, developing promising therapeutic drugs and device products at the Texas Heart Institute, Dr. Darren Woodside works with scholars here in Houston and internationally. We sat down with him to learn more about how his curiosity as a child launched an executive career in the largest medical complex in the world. Good morning, Dr. Woodside. Thank you so much for being with us today. My pleasure. So how did you get into medicine? Well, I've always been very curious as an individual, at a very young age. Curiosity is kind of one of the underlying characteristics of a scientist. I've also been very driven by discovery and so when you combine curiosity with discovery into research that can actually help patients overall, it's a very fulfilling field. So what's the most exciting part of your job at THI? You know, I had a background in basic and translational science for a long time and now I'm in more of a role that's helping to formulate some of the direction that the institute goes with respect to research. And so being able to directly see how research affects patients is one of the best aspects I think of working at THI and so going from both bench to bedside is really the mantra of THI. In the last, you know, three years, how has research evolved? You know, sometimes we go off the beaten path a little bit where the science takes us and I think it was Pasteur has said, chance favors a prepared mind and so, you know, when we find an avenue of research that can help a lot of different people, maybe not even in cardiovascular disease, we follow it. How are things changing post COVID, would you say? You know, Dr. Emerson Perron is an investigator on, he was selected to be a site for the federal program in operation warp speed, which is designing or coming up with clinical trials to test new treatment strategies for COVID-19. But in the long term, it'll be more on dealing with the long term consequences of COVID-19 disease, right? So the virus that causes it can have a lot of implications in cardiovascular disease. You can have a lot of heart issues that pop up after COVID-19 infection. I mean, it's not that much different than other respiratory viruses or viruses that affect the lungs and things like influenza. The flu, yeah. Yeah, so the flu, you know, there's always been a link with cardiovascular disease in the flu. In fact, there are studies that show that basically after the flu, there might be a six-fold increase in your chance of having a heart attack or a stroke. And so the changes that occur in the heart and the long-term consequences of being infected with SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19, are going to be some areas that we'll need to focus on. Dr. Woodside's team of investigators includes leading scientists, engineers, and doctors who are doubling down on some of the most cutting-edge treatments and partnering with experts near and far to accelerate the advancement of therapies into the clinic. So tell me about the main area of focus that you have here at THI, or main areas of focus. There's multiple ones. So right now, we have five to six basic thematic areas of research. And these involve our historical research in assist devices and mechanical assist devices, total artificial heart. We have gene therapy programs. We have programs in regenerative medicine research. We have programs in electrophysiology trying to develop wireless and leadless pacemakers for the heart. And we also have stem cell programs or cell-based therapies that Dr. Amerson-Parran has spearheaded throughout his career here at THI. There's going to be some positive data coming out probably in the next three to four months so that demonstrating very, very good success in heart failure patients when there are cells that are directly injected into their heart muscle. And so these cells have a general anti-inflammatory effect, and they seem to be very, very beneficial in heart failure patients that are very early in disease progression. As I mentioned before, it might be surprising that, for viewers, that THI hasn't had direct patient care in the past. And now we have clinicians that our THI clinicians are directly involved in patient care through the Texas Heart Institute. We have, like I said before, the soup to nuts, the full research ecosystem, if you will, of translational research into patient care with our clinicians. So is there anything else that you'd like to add that we haven't touched on? Well, just at the excitement around Texas Heart Institute now with our new President and CEO, Dr. Drew Rogers, joining us in about a month, we're going to see expansion of our research. We're going to see shoring up the research that we have now and identifying the next areas that we really want to identify the next first. From cell therapy and regenerative medicine to gain changing treatments for patients with heart rhythm problems and heart failure, THI is thriving under Dr. Woodside's leadership. We look forward to seeing you next time for a new episode. For the heartbeat, I'm Maya Pomroy.