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Faculty Detail    
Name SURESH KUMAR VERMA
Associate Professor		  
Campus Address ZRB 302 Zip 0007
Phone  (205) 975-8833
E-mail  sverma@uabmc.edu
Other websites http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/collections/public/1jo4fxRipaKcnmtPDdHE2XKkh/?sort=date&direction=ascending
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ymtlz_gAAAAJ&hl=en
     

Education
Undergraduate  RML Avadh University Faizabad, UP, India    2000  MS 
Graduate  Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India    2007  PhD 


Faculty Appointment(s)
Appointment Type Department Division Rank
Center  UWIRC Microbiome Center  UWIRC Microbiome Center Associate Professor
Center  Comprehensive Cardiovascular Ctr  Comprehensive Cardiovascular Ctr Associate Professor
Center  Ctr for Clinical & Translational Sci  Ctr for Clinical & Translational Sci Associate Professor
Primary  Med - Cardiovascular Disease  Med - Cardiovascular Disease Associate Professor
Secondary  Biomedical Engineering  Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor

Biographical Sketch 
Dr. Verma is an Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease and in Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center (CCVC) here in the Department of Medicine, UAB. He obtained his MS and Ph.D. from India both in Biochemistry. Dr. Verma’s interest in basic and translational research motivates him to come USA and start his postdoctoral training first with Prof. David E. Dostal at Texas A&M University Texas followed by Prof. Raj Kishore at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois. Before joining UAB, Division of Cardiovascular Disease in 2018, Dr. Verma served as Assistant Professor first in Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute, Northwestern University Chicago, and later at Center for Translational Medicine, Temple University Philadelphia. Dr. Verma published over 45 peer-reviewed articles in high impact journals including Nature communications, Circulation, Circulation Research, Cardiovascular Research, JACC, JMCC etc. He actively involves with scientific services such as editor/reviewer for many journals and grant agencies (like NIH and AHA). Dr. Verma is recipient/finalist of multiple honor and awards including AHA prestigious Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2013), New Investigator travel Award (2011) etc. The primary mission of Dr. Verma’s research is to identify and test novel therapeutic targets to prevent or delay development and progress of heart failure.

Society Memberships
Organization Name Position Held Org Link
American Heart Association (AHA-BCVS)  Member  http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/ 
International Society of Heart Research (ISHR)  Memeber  https://www.ishr.ch/ 
Society of Neuroscience India  Life Member  https://www.sfn.org/ 
 



Research/Clinical Interest
Title
Novel Pathways for Cardiac Fibrosis, Epitranscriptomic modification of mRNA in cardiac heart, Metabolic Regulation of Cardiac Cell death, Gut-Heart axis in heart failure
Description
The overall focus of my research is to understand the molecular mechanisms of pathological remodeling and heart failure. Heart disease involves complex signaling pathways associated with inflammation, cardiomyocyte death, and the replacement of dead cells with a fibrous scar. Indeed, metabolic preconditioning such as diabetes exacerbates inflammatory response and fibrotic remodeling during both acute and chronic heart failure. The current focus of my laboratory involves the following broad and interrelating research areas: 1. Determine whether bone marrow progenitor cells and/or resident endothelial cells are involved in pathological fibrosis in chronic pressure overloaded myocardium. 2. Identify the role of m6A mRNA methylation in the regulation of cardiac pathophysiology. Here we ask the questions, what transcripts undergo hyper or hypomethylated, and how it impact the cardiac function following heart failure. 3. Bidirectional Gut-Heart signaling in the progress of heart disease. Here we are trying to determine the contribution of gut dysbiosis and leakage and its impact on heart biology and function. My laboratory uses state-of-the-art techniques and strategies such as genetically manipulated animal models, RNA interference, microRNA strategies, recombinant DNA technologies, Electron/Fluorescent microscopy, etc to dissect the mechanisms proposed in the above project. We are always looking for motivated, creative students to join the lab. If you are interested, please send your CV, cover letter, and contact information of three references to me: sverma@uabmc.edu

Selected Publications 
Publication PUBMEDID
Kumari R, Ranjan P, Suleiman ZG, Goswami SK, Li J, Prasad R, Verma SK. mRNA modifications in cardiovascular biology and disease: with a focus on m6A modification. Cardiovasc Res. 2021 May 6;. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvab160  33956076 
Ranjan P., Kumari R., Pal H.; Garikipati V.N.S., Krishnamurthy PK., Kishore R., and Verma S.K*. Cardiac Fibroblasts-Derived Exosomes mediates endothelial cell dysfunction during hypertrophic cardiac remodeling. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine 2021;8:676267  33969024 
Garikipati VNS, Verma SK, Cheng Z, Liang D, Truongcao MM, Cimini M, Yue Y, Huang G, Wang C, Benedict C, Tang Y, Mallaredy V, Ibetti J, Grisanti L, Schumacher SM, Gao E, Rajan S, Wilusz JE, Goukassian D, Houser SR, Koch WJ, Kishore R. Circular RNA CircFndc3b modulates cardiac repair after myocardial infarction via FUS/VEGF-A axis. Nat Commun. 2019 Sep 20;10(1):4317. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11777-7.  31541092 
Verma SK., Garikipati VNS., Krishnamurthy PK., Schumacher SM., Grisanti LA., Cimini M., Cheng Z., Khan M., Yue Y., Benedict C., Truongcao MM., Rabinowitz JE., Goukassian DA., Tilley D., Koch WJ., Kishore R. IL-10 inhibits bone marrow fibroblast progenitor cells mediated cardiac fibrosis in pressure-overloaded myocardium. Circulation (2017) 136:940-953.   28667100 
Verma SK., Girikipati VNS., Kishore R. Mitochondrial dysfunction and its impact on diabetic heart. BBA-molecular basis of diseases (2017) 1863: 1098-1105.   27593695 
Kishore R., Krishnamurthy PK., Garikipati V.N.S., Abramova T., Nickoloff E., Benedict C., Khan M., Johnson J., Gumpert AM, Koch W.J. and Verma S.K. IL-10 inhibits pressure overload-induced pathological autophagy. Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (2015) 89:203-213.  26549357 
Verma SK, Krishnamurthy PK, Barefield D, Singh N, Gupta R, Lambers E, Thal M, Mackie A, Hoxha E, Ramirez V, Qin G, Sadayappan S, Ghosh A and Kishore R. IL10 attenuates pressure overload induced hypertrophic remodeling and improves heart function via STAT3 dependent inhibition of NFkB. Circulation. 2012; 126(4): 418-429.  22705886 
Verma, SK, Lal, H, Golden, HB, Smith, M, Guleria, RS, Foster, DM, Lu, G and Dostal, DE. Differential Roles of Rac1 and RhoA in regulating mechanical stretch-induced angiotensinogen gene expression in cardiac fibroblasts. Cardiovascular Research 2011; 90(1): 88-96.  21131638 
 

Keywords
Myocardial inflammation, Cardiac fibrosis, miRNAs, Extracellular vesicle, Cell signaling, mRNA epigenetic, Gut dysbiosis, and Hypertrophic heart failure.