Office:	BST 1704.1
	200 Lothrop Street
	Pittsburgh, PA 15213
E-mail:	ima6@pitt.edu

Education
	PhD, McGill University, 2009

Training
	Postdoc, Pagano Lab, University of Pittsburgh, 2013

Dr. Al Ghouleh’s lab is focused on the study of pulmonary hypertension, a devastating disease that currently has no treatment. An area of major focus is defining the mechanisms that underlie right ventricular phenotypic changes in this disease. As the disease progresses, extensive remodeling occurs in the blood vessels that compose the pulmonary circulation which leads to progressive increases in pulmonary vascular resistance. This in turn causes pressure overload on the right ventricle (RV) of the heart which undergoes remodeling as a result. Initially, RV remodeling is adaptive, but eventually becomes maladaptive and leads to RV failure. There is very little known about the pathways that drive this process. Dr. Al Ghouleh’s lab is focused on understanding these pathways. Their preliminary findings identified a signaling cascade involving the protein ERM binding phosphoprotein 50 (EBP50), also called NHE regulatory factor 1 (NHERF1), in this process. Current research is designed to test this pathway in the RV following pressure overload challenge and to delineate upstream and downstream mechanisms involved with a long-term focus on translating mechanistic insights into potential therapeutic strategies aimed at the RV.

Dr. Al Ghouleh is actively engaged in training and mentoring junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, medical residents, undergraduate, graduate and medical students.

For my complete bibliography, Click Here.

Selected Publications: