TAU on track to prevent "Sudden Cardiac Arrest"Sudden Cardiac Arrest syndrome (SCA) is poorly understood, but it's a real danger for the otherwise young and healthy. For no apparent reason, the heart suddenly stops beating, and without treatment death may follow within minutes. It's why some athletes drop dead on the track and why a young man, without any warning, suddenly dies while sitting at his desk. SCA accounts for approximately 300,000 deaths per year in the U.S.Dr. Joel Hirsch of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biochemistry has teamed up with Prof. Bernard Attali of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine Department of Physiology and Pharmacology to investigate the cause and effects of the fatal syndrome. Not the same as a heart attack ? in which heart muscles continue to pump, however erratically ? SCA normally occurs with no warning.This team is hot on the trail of understanding how a multi-gene syndrome, one of the causes for SCA, operates inside the body. Once they figure out how the disor

"SCA is not as uncommon as most people think," Dr. Hirsch says.
"We are looking specifically at channels that allow certain electrical ions to pass through membranes, and the mutated ones that do not. If we can understand the molecular signalling required to keeping the heart pumping regularly, we might be able to design a drug to help cure the disease before it strikes," says Dr. Hirsch.
"There are mutations that can be found when doctors do genetic screening called Long QT syndrome. We are trying to figure out what has gone awry in the signaling systems in people with these mutations, starting with how the natural nanomachines work," he explains.