Ana Vujic
BHF Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow, Group leader
Email: av335@cam.ac.uk
Twitter: @AnaVujic5
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ana-vujic-31333317
Mastodon/other social media:
ORCID 0000-0002-0559-5299
Biography
Ana Vujic received BSc in Biomedical Laboratory Sciences from University of Jönköping (2001-2004) and a MSc in Medical Biology from Linköping Health University (2004-2006), Sweden. Her fascination with cardiac research started during her PhD (4-Year-Wellcome Trust funded), University of Cambridge, where she investigated the role of DNA methylation dynamics in the development of cardiomyopathy (2008-2012). Following completion of her doctoral thesis, Dr. Vujic did a postdoc on epigenetic regulation of heart failure in Prof. Roger Foo’s lab at National University of Singapore (2013). Ana, then pursued another postdoc in Prof. Richard T Lee’s laboratory at BWH/Harvard University (2013-2020), where she studied mechanisms of cardiac regeneration and ageing. In collaboration with Prof. Anthony Rosenzweig’s laboratory at MGH, Ana demonstrated exercised induced cardiomyogenesis by stable isotope labelling and mass-spec imaging.
In 2020, Dr. Vujic was awarded the British Heart Foundation Career Development Award and subsequently moved to University of Cambridge. In this role, Ana worked with Prof. Thomas Krieg and Prof. Mike Murphy team’s, exploring mitochondrial regulatory mechanisms in the context of heart failure and exercise, and developed an independent research program. Dr Vujic was honored with the BHF Intermediate Research Fellowship (2023), and transitioned into the role of a group leader.
Research Approach:
Vujic laboratory focuses on investigating the role of mitochondrial metabolites and redox state in cardiac remodeling during heart failure, with a particularly emphasis on understanding cardiomyocyte and myocardial adaptive response to metabolic stressors and exercise intervention. Additionally, Vujic group is exploring the inter-organ cross-talk, and its impact on the heart during metabolic stress and exercise.
To achieve these objectives, Vujic laboratory employs a comprehensive approach that combines pre-clinical disease models (including GMO models, surgically induced disease models, dietary and exercise interventions), cardiometabolic phenotyping, and a diverse array of techniques in biochemistry (mass-spec based techniques), molecular and cellular biology (primary cells, mitochondria). The team works closely with clinical researchers on HFpEF and cardiac rehabilitation (REACH-HFpEF). Through these methodologies, we aim to identify novel pathways and targets that can serve as foundation for developing translational therapeutic interventions.
Current projects:
- The role of mitochondrial metabolic and redox networks in guiding cardiac remodeling during physiological and pathological stress.
- Inter-organ cross-talk: Metabolic signaling during development of HFpEF
Selected Publications
- Lerchenmüller C*, Vujic A*, Mittag S, Wang A, Rabolli C.P, Heiss C, Gyngard F, Guillermier C, Roh J, Li H, Steinhauser M.L, Frey N, Dieterich C, Rosenzweig A, Lee R.T. Restoration of cardiomyogenesis in aged mouse hearts by voluntary exercise. Circ. (2022) PMID:35862076 * Joint Lead authors. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.057276?r...
- Vujic A, Koo A, Prag H, Krieg T. Mitochondrial redox and TCA cycle metabolite signaling in the heart. Free Radic Biol Med. (2021) PMID: 33675958 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2021.02.041
- Roh JD, Houstis N, Yu A, Chang B, Yeri A, Li H, Hobson R, Lerchenmuller C, Vujic A, Chaudhari V, Damilano F, Platt C, Zlotoff D, Shah R, Lee RT, Jerosch-Herold M, Rosenzweig A. Exercise Training Reverses Cardiac Aging Phenotypes Associated with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction in male mice. Aging Cell (2020) PMID: 32441410 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.13159
- Natarajan N*, Vujic A*, Das J, Wang AC, Phu KK, Kiehm SH, Ricci-Blair EM, Zhu AY, Vaughan KL, Colman RJ, Mattison JA, Lee RT. Impact of dietary fat and sucrose consumption on cardiac fibrosis in mice and rhesus monkeys. JCI Insight (2019) PMID: 31415241 * Joint Lead authors. https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/128685
- Vujic A*, Lerchenmüller C*, Wu T.D, Guillermier C, Rabolli C.P, Gonzalez E, Senyo S.E, Liu X, Guerquin-Kern J.C, Steinhauser M.L, Lee R.T, Rosenzweig A. Exercise induces new cardiomyocyte generation in the mammalian heart (2018). Nat. Comm. PMID: 29695718 * Joint Lead authors. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04083-1
Research collaborators/links
Thomas Krieg:
https://emit.medschl.cam.ac.uk/people/investigators/dr-thomas-krieg/
Mike Murphy:
https://www.mrc-mbu.cam.ac.uk/research-groups/murphy-group
Antonio Vidal-Puig: https://www.tvplab-cambridge.com
https://www.mrl.ims.cam.ac.uk/research/our-research-teams/vidal-puig-group/
Dunja Aksentijevic: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/whri/people/academic-staff/items/aksentijevicdunja-.html
Christi Deaton: https://www.phpc.cam.ac.uk/people/pcu-group/pcu-senior-academic-staff/christi-deaton/
