Dr. rer. nat. Jana Grune

Research areas: experimental cardiology, immuno-physiology and pharmacology of cardiopulmonary diseases.

Jana Grune is DZHK Junior Research Group leader at the German Heart Center at Charité in Berlin. Her research is dedicated to pathophysiological mechanisms underlying diseases of the heart-lung axis and inter-organ communication in the context of primary heart disease.

Chronic left heart diseases may arise from valvular heart disease, loss of viable myocardium or diastolic dysfunction. Pulmonary hypertension is a frequent complication in patients with left heart disease, causing shortness of breath, fatigue, weakness, and syncope. In this situation, the right ventricle must cope with an increased afterload, leading to right ventricular hypertrophy and ultimately death by right heart failure. Yet, no effective treatment is presently available, which is, at least in part, due to a lack of mechanistic understanding of the disease.

Pulmonary vascular remodeling observed in distal pulmonary arteries is the key pathophysiological hallmark in pulmonary hypertension. Vascular remodeling is not solely a passive response to congestion but includes molecular and structural alterations as proliferation of smooth muscle cells, endothelial dysfunction, activation of the innate immune system and matrix deposition. Mounting evidence reveals that recruited innate immune cells actively mediate vascular remodeling in pulmonary hypertension.

Jana Grune’s goal is to define novel signaling pathways, disease drivers and immune cell signatures relevant for pulmonary hypertension subtypes to improve our mechanistic understanding of pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease to inform novel treatment strategies. Her translational research approach bridges basic and clinical science using cellular models, complex disease models and patient material.

• DPG: Du Bois-Reymond Preis 2023
• DGK: Frany-Maximilin-Groedel-Forschungspreis 2023
• DKG: Hans-Blömer-Young Investigator Award 2022
• International Society for Heart Research (ISHR) poster award for ‘Cardio-pulmonary interactions in HFpEF’, Berlin, Germany, 2022
• German Society of Cardiology (DGK) Hans-Blömer-Young Investigator Award for ‘Spironolactone prevents hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction via inhibition of Pannexin 1’, Mannheim, Germany, 2022
• Visualsonics Travel Award for “Establishing a new application in 3D small animal echocardiography”, at AHA annual meeting, Philadelphia, USA, 2019
• European Council for Cardiovascular Research (ECCR) Best Poster ‘Basic Research’ for ‘Selective Mineralocorticoid Receptor Cofactor Modulation as Molecular Basis for Finerenone's Antifibrotic Activity’, Garda, Italy, 2016

Hegemann N, Bintig W, Perret PL, et al. In-ovo echocardiography for application in cardiovascular research. Basic Res Cardiol. 2023;118(1):19. Published 2023 May 16. doi:10.1007/s00395-023-00989-0, PMID: 37193927

Covington TA, Pilz PM, Mulhern RM, et al. GPx3 deficiency exacerbates maladaptive right ventricular remodeling in experimental pulmonary artery banding. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2023;324(4):L550-L556. doi:10.1152/ajplung.00379.2022, PMID: 36880685

Hegemann N, Sang P, Kim JH, et al. Ultrasonographic assessment of pulmonary and Central venous congestion in experimental heart failure. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2024;326(2):H433-H440. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00735.2023, PMID: 38099848

Schreiber T, Grune J, Landmesser U, Attanasio P. Detection and modification of biomarkers of inflammation determining successful rhythm control in patients with atrial fibrillation. Biomarkers. 2023;28(8):681-691. doi:10.1080/1354750X.2023.2284122, PMID: 37962292

Kucherenko MM, Sang P, Yao J, et al. Elastin stabilization prevents impaired biomechanics in human pulmonary arteries and pulmonary hypertension in rats with left heart disease. Nat Commun. 2023;14(1):4416. Published 2023 Jul 21. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-39934-z, PMID: 37479718

Grune J, Lewis AJM, Yamazoe M, Hulsmans M, Rohde D, Xiao L, Zhang S, Ott C, Calcagno DM, Zhou Y, Timm K, Shanmuganathan M, Pulous F, Schloss MJ, Foy BH, Capen D, Wojtkiewicz GR, Iwamoto Y, Grune T, Brown D, Higgins J, Ferreira VM, Herring N, Channon KM, Neubauer S, Oxford Acute Myocardial Infarction (OxAMI) Study, Sosnovik DE, Milan DJ, Swirski FK, King KR, Aguirre AD, Ellinor PT,  Nahrendorf M. Neutrophils incite and macrophages avert electrical storm after myocardial infarction. Nat Cardiovasc Res 1, 649–664 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-022-00094-w

Ott C, Pappritz K, Hegemann N, John C, Jeuthe S, McAlpine CS, Iwamoto Y, Lauryn JH, Klages J, Klopfleisch R, Van Linthout S, Swirski F, Nahrendorf M, Kintscher U, Grune T, Kuebler WM, Grune J. Spontaneous Degenerative Aortic Valve Disease in New Zealand Obese Mice. J Am Heart Assoc. 2021 Dec 7;10(23):e023131. Epub 2021 Nov 15. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.121.023131

Ott C, Jung T, Brix S, John C, Betz IR, Foryst-Ludwig A, Deubel S, Kuebler WM, Grune T, Kintscher U, Grune J. Hypertrophy-Reduced Autophagy Causes Cardiac Dysfunction by Directly Impacting Cardiomyocyte Contractility. Cells. 2021 Apr 4;10(4):805. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10040805

Grune J, Yamazoe M, Nahrendorf M. Electroimmunology and cardiac arrhythmia. Nat Rev Cardiol. 2021 Mar 2. 2021 Aug;18(8):547-564. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-021-00520-9

Grune J, Beyhoff N, Hegemann N, Lauryn JH, Kuebler WM. From bedside to bench: lung ultrasound for the assessment of pulmonary edema in animal models. Cell Tissue Res. 2020 May;380(2):379-392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-020-03172-2

Grune J, Tabuchi A, Kuebler WM. Alveolar dynamics during mechanical ventilation in the healthy and injured lung. Intensive Care Med Exp. 2019 Jul 25;7(Suppl 1):34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40635-019-0226-5

Grune J, Beyhoff N, Smeir E, Chudek R, Blumrich A, Ban Z, Brix S, Betz IR, Schupp M, Foryst-Ludwig A, Klopfleisch R, Stawowy P, Houtman R, Kolkhof P, Kintscher U (2018a) Selective Mineralocorticoid Receptor Cofactor Modulation as Molecular Basis for Finerenone's Antifibrotic Activity. Hypertension 71:599-608 https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.117.10360

Beyhoff N, Brix S, Betz IR, Klopfleisch R, Foryst-Ludwig A, Krannich A, Stawowy P, Knebel F, Grune J,  Kintscher U (2017) Application of Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography in an Experimental Model of Isolated Subendocardial Damage. J Am Soc Echocardiogr 30:1239-1250 e1232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2017.08.006

Two new junior research groups started at the DZHK (26/01/2023)