Question: Hey!its me again. I just wanted to thank you for answering my long and lengthily question in the group chat and....to ask you some more! The first question I'm going to ask isn't very sciensy but it interests me. "Why hearts? Why not livers or brains or stomachs?" Secondly "how do heart attacks that run in the family work? Is it because the blood is different?" If you could answer those it would make my day. Thank you

Anita Thomas answered on 23 Jun 2014:

Dear magicmidget,

Why hearts? Well, at first I wasn’t any more interested in hearts (and in particular, arteries). In fact I was much more interested in livers (used to transplant them). Then I got to realise just how important heart disease was………and went on from there.

What makes up the genetic component ie the family gene traits that lead to heart disease is the subject of lots of current research. In my field of macrophage cell activation, the change of an amino acid in an enzyme that breaks down the metabolic amino acid arginine is a contributor to increased probability of heart attack (in Science, almost everything has a probability of occurring. Statistics is very, very important.) My colleague down the hall is looking at different genes for platelets (clotting mini-cells in the blood). Other people have altered genes for other clotting or clot-breakdown products that mean that their blood is more/less prone to thrombus formation. Other people have genes that mean that the endothelial cells lining the arteries respond differently from other peoples cells………..
So you can see, the different gene can result in changes in blood factors but may also be changes in the cells of the artery wall – and elsewhere. We are a very complex system.

I’ve enjoyed answering your questions. Thank you, and good luck,
Anita.