Research:

Key words: autoimmune, disease, pathogenesis

In my research, I focus on gaining a better understanding the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. I have developed an independent, original research program, examining the role of cardiac resident cells and monocytes/macrophages in the inflammatory heart disease and the development of dilated cardiomyopathy. Recently, we have described a new pathway that IL-17A, a key Th17 cytokine, utilizes to drive dilated cardiomyopathy, by stimulating cardiac fibroblast to produce GM-CSF and induce proinflammatory differentiation of monocytyes. Our finding for the first time showed that cardiac fibroblast contribution to cardiac remodeling is not only through their collagen production but also by their production of cytokines and chemokines that then shapes the quality of cardiac infiltrate during myocarditis and resulting cardiac remodeling and fibrosis. Second, our findings highlighted that subtyping monocytes during myocarditis could be of potential interest since only inflammatory Ly6Chi (equivalent of CD14hi monocytes in humans) lead to dilated cardiomyopathy.

I have been also interested in the role of other Th cells subtypes in myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy, mainly Th2 driven eosinophilic myocarditis and role of eosinophils as well as innate lymphoid cells type 2 in the disease pathogenesis.

Publications and Interests: https://jhu.pure.elsevier.com/en/persons/daniela-cihakova