Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, MBA, on Incorporating AI into Genetic Research for Cardiovascular Disease

“One thing that I think will end up being married to genetics will be artificial intelligence. There's a lot of data that's being produced from large scale genetic analyses. And I think AI will help us sift through all those data and help us incorporate data that's provided from genotyping patients with clinical demographic information, with information from imaging tests, CT scans, echoes, ultrasounds, that sort of thing. So, I think that's going to be a pretty big line of research. At Mount Sinai as well, we are in the AI space, collaborating with companies doing AI research, doing AI research with our own physicians and scientists here.”

Gene therapy research is expanding to cardiology and other relatively newer fields of investigation. One recent splash in the field was created by Verve’s gene editing therapies VERVE-101 and VERVE-102 for heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH), the former of which was recently deprioritized in favor of the latter, next-generation therapy after unexpected adverse events.¹ In May 2024, the company dosed the first patient with HeFH or premature coronary artery disease (CAD) in Heart-2, a phase 1b clinical trial (NCT06164730) evaluating VERVE-102.²

CGTLive® spoke with Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, MBA, Director, Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and Dr. Valentin Fuster Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to learn more about research for gene replacement and gene editing therapies that Mount Sinai is engaged with. He shared a new focus of research on artificial intelligence (AI) and how it complements data analysis.

REFERENCES

1. Verve therapeutics announces updates on its PCSK9 program. Verve Therapeutics. April 2, 2024. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://ir.vervetx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/verve-therapeutics-announces-updates-its-pcsk9-program.
2. Verve Therapeutics Announces Dosing of First Patient in Heart-2 Phase 1b Clinical Trial Evaluating VERVE-102. News release. Verve Therapeutics. May 7, 2024. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://ir.vervetx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/verve-therapeutics-announces