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Francis J. Alenghat

Assistant Professor
alenghat@uchicago.edu
Websites
Research Summary
Dr. Alenghat's laboratory focuses on macrophage biology and the inflammatory component of atherosclerosis. His clinical interests and academic pursuits lie within the fields of cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology, with a special focus on vascular biology and inflammatory pathways in atherosclerosis. He also has experience in integrin biology, mechanotransduction, and extracellular matrix biology. He seeks to discover basic mechanisms of physiology and pathophysiology that govern cardiovascular health and disease. One of the laboratory’s main projects is to elucidate how a signaling pathway that is activated downstream of integrins in macrophages governs atherogenesis and macrophage polarization. His laboratory has expertise in mouse husbandry, tissue sample preparation, immunohistochemistry, and quantitative confocal microscopy. He is highly motivated to mentor future physicians and scientists in an overarching aim to promote health by understanding and reducing cardiovascular disease.
Keywords
Atherosclerosis, Coronary, Macrophages, Bone Marrow-Derived, Macrophages, Monocyte-Derived, Inflammation Mediators
Education
  • Harvard College, S.B. Engineering
  • Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Ph.D. Biophysics
  • Harvard Medical School, M.D. Medicine
  • Brigham & Women's Hospital, Internal Medicine
  • Brigham & Women's Hospital, Cardiovascular Medicine
Biosciences Graduate Program Association
Awards & Honors
  • 1994 - Detur Prize Harvard College
  • 1996 - Phi Beta Kappa Harvard College
  • 1997 - Tau Beta Pi for Excellence in Engineering Harvard College
  • 1999 - Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellowship Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • 2005 - James Tolbert Shipley Prize Harvard Medical School
  • 2009 - Laennec Young Clinician Award Finalist American Heart Association
  • 2010 - Future Leaders in CV Medical Research Award Leadership Council for Improving Cardiovascular Care
  • 2011 - AHA/ATVB Travel Award for Young Investigators American Heart Association
  • 2012 - Thomas W. Smith Fellowship Brigham & Women's Hospital
  • 2013 - William F. Keating Award for Hypertension & Peripheral Vascular Disease American College of Cardiology
  • 2015 - ATVB Young Investigator Travel Award Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology
  • 2017 - Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC) American College of Cardiology
Publications

  1. Pulipati VP, Alenghat FJ. The impact of lipid-lowering medications on coronary artery plaque characteristics. Am J Prev Cardiol. 2021 Dec; 8:100294. View in: PubMed

  2. Belkin MN, Alenghat FJ, Besser SA, Pinney SP, Grinstein J. Improved Prognostic Performance of Cardiac Power Output With Right Atrial Pressure: A Subanalysis of the ESCAPE Trial. J Card Fail. 2022 May; 28(5):866-869. View in: PubMed

  3. Kanelidis AJ, Miller P, Prabhu N, Dela Cruz MJ, Alenghat FJ, McMullen P, Sarswat N, Derman BA, Polonsky TS, DeCara JM. ATTR Cardiomyopathy Meets Multiple Myeloma: The Importance of Cardiac Biopsy. JACC CardioOncol. 2021 Oct; 3(4):598-601. View in: PubMed

  4. Belkin MN, Blair JE, Shah SJ, Alenghat FJ. A composite metric for predicting benefit from spironolactone in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. ESC Heart Fail. 2021 10; 8(5):3495-3503. View in: PubMed

  5. Attia ZI, Kapa S, Dugan J, Pereira N, Noseworthy PA, Jimenez FL, Cruz J, Carter RE, DeSimone DC, Signorino J, Halamka J, Chennaiah Gari NR, Madathala RS, Platonov PG, Gul F, Janssens SP, Narayan S, Upadhyay GA, Alenghat FJ, Lahiri MK, Dujardin K, Hermel M, Dominic P, Turk-Adawi K, Asaad N, Svensson A, Fernandez-Aviles F, Esakof DD, Bartunek J, Noheria A, Sridhar AR, Lanza GA, Cohoon K, Padmanabhan D, Pardo Gutierrez JA, Sinagra G, Merlo M, Zagari D, Rodriguez Escenaro BD, Pahlajani DB, Loncar G, Vukomanovic V, Jensen HK, Farkouh ME, Luescher TF, Su Ping CL, Peters NS, Friedman PA. Rapid Exclusion of COVID Infection With the Artificial Intelligence Electrocardiogram. Mayo Clin Proc. 2021 08; 96(8):2081-2094. View in: PubMed

  6. Lowisz J, Alenghat FJ, Li Y, Roberson D, Penk J, Gandhi R. Comparison of semi-automated versus manual quantitative right ventricular assessment in tetralogy of Fallot. Cardiol Young. 2021 Nov; 31(11):1781-1787. View in: PubMed

  7. Belkin MN, Alenghat FJ, Besser SA, Nguyen AB, Chung BB, Smith BA, Kalantari S, Sarswat N, Blair JEA, Kim GH, Pinney SP, Grinstein J. Aortic pulsatility index predicts clinical outcomes in heart failure: a sub-analysis of the ESCAPE trial. ESC Heart Fail. 2021 04; 8(2):1522-1530. View in: PubMed

  8. Holzhauser L, Clerkin KJ, Fujino T, Alenghat FJ, Raikhelkar J, Kim G, Sayer G, Uriel N. Donor-derived cell-free DNA is associated with cardiac allograft vasculopathy. Clin Transplant. 2021 03; 35(3):e14206. View in: PubMed

  9. Karunakaran D, Nguyen MA, Geoffrion M, Vreeken D, Lister Z, Cheng HS, Otte N, Essebier P, Wyatt H, Kandiah JW, Jung R, Alenghat FJ, Mompeon A, Lee R, Pan C, Gordon E, Rasheed A, Lusis AJ, Liu P, Matic LP, Hedin U, Fish JE, Guo L, Kolodgie F, Virmani R, van Gils JM, Rayner KJ. RIPK1 Expression Associates With Inflammation in Early Atherosclerosis in Humans and Can Be Therapeutically Silenced to Reduce NF-?B Activation and Atherogenesis in Mice. Circulation. 2021 01 12; 143(2):163-177. View in: PubMed

  10. Singh N, Anchan RK, Besser SA, Belkin MN, Cruz MD, Lee L, Yu D, Mehta N, Nguyen AB, Alenghat FJ. High sensitivity Troponin-T for prediction of adverse events in patients with COVID-19. Biomarkers. 2020 Dec; 25(8):626-633. View in: PubMed

  11. Holzhauser L, Fujino T, Alenghat F, Raikhelkar J, Kim G, Sayer G, Uriel N. Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA is Associated with Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2020 Apr; 39(4S):S63. View in: PubMed

  12. Holzhauser L, Fujino T, Nguyen A, Alenghat F, Raikhelkar J, Kim G, Sayer G, Uriel N. Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA Does Not Correlate with Levels of Inflammation or Angiogenesis in a Stable Post Transplant Population. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2020 Apr; 39(4S):S287. View in: PubMed

  13. Upadhyay GA, Alenghat FJ. Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation in 2019. JAMA. 2019 08 20; 322(7):686-687. View in: PubMed

  14. Arnold KA, Blair JE, Paul JD, Shah AP, Nathan S, Alenghat FJ. Monocyte and macrophage subtypes as paired cell biomarkers for coronary artery disease. Exp Physiol. 2019 09; 104(9):1343-1352. View in: PubMed

  15. Laffin LJ, Alenghat FJ. The SPRINT Trial Score web calculator. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2019 12; 26(18):2016. View in: PubMed

  16. Arnold KA, Treister AD, Lio PA, Alenghat FJ. Association of Atherosclerosis Prevalence With Age, Race, and Traditional Risk Factors in Patients With Psoriasis. JAMA Dermatol. 2019 05 01; 155(5):622-623. View in: PubMed

  17. Alenghat FJ, Davis AM. Management of Blood Cholesterol. JAMA. 2019 02 26; 321(8):800-801. View in: PubMed

  18. Laffin LJ, Besser SA, Alenghat FJ. A data-zone scoring system to assess the generalizability of clinical trial results to individual patients. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2019 04; 26(6):569-575. View in: PubMed

  19. Poon C, Chowdhuri S, Kuo CH, Fang Y, Alenghat FJ, Hyatt D, Kani K, Gross ME, Chung EJ. Protein Mimetic and Anticancer Properties of Monocyte-Targeting Peptide Amphiphile Micelles. ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2017 Dec 11; 3(12):3273-3282. View in: PubMed

  20. Alenghat FJ. The Prevalence of Atherosclerosis in Those with Inflammatory Connective Tissue Disease by Race, Age, and Traditional Risk Factors. Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 04; 6:20303. View in: PubMed

  21. Chung EJ, Mlinar LB, Nord K, Sugimoto MJ, Wonder E, Alenghat FJ, Fang Y, Tirrell M. Monocyte-targeting supramolecular micellar assemblies: a molecular diagnostic tool for atherosclerosis. Adv Healthc Mater. 2015 Feb 18; 4(3):367-76. View in: PubMed

  22. Alenghat FJ, Golan DE. Membrane protein dynamics and functional implications in mammalian cells. Curr Top Membr. 2013; 72:89-120. View in: PubMed

  23. Overby DR, Alenghat FJ, Montoya-Zavala M, Bei H, Oh P, Karavitis J, Ingber DE. Magnetic Cellular Switches. IEEE Trans Magn. 2004; 40(4):2958-2960. View in: PubMed

  24. Alenghat FJ, Couper GS, Givertz MM. Giant left ventricular aneurysm as a late complication of inferior myocardial infarction. Eur Heart J. 2013 Feb; 34(5):344. View in: PubMed

  25. Alenghat FJ, Baca QJ, Rubin NT, Pao LI, Matozaki T, Lowell CA, Golan DE, Neel BG, Swanson KD. Macrophages require Skap2 and Sirpa for integrin-stimulated cytoskeletal rearrangement. J Cell Sci. 2012 Nov 15; 125(Pt 22):5535-45. View in: PubMed

  26. Alenghat FJ, Tytell JD, Thodeti CK, Derrien A, Ingber DE. Mechanical control of cAMP signaling through integrins is mediated by the heterotrimeric Galphas protein. J Cell Biochem. 2009 Mar 01; 106(4):529-38. View in: PubMed

  27. Nauli SM, Rossetti S, Kolb RJ, Alenghat FJ, Consugar MB, Harris PC, Ingber DE, Loghman-Adham M, Zhou J. Loss of polycystin-1 in human cyst-lining epithelia leads to ciliary dysfunction. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2006 Apr; 17(4):1015-25. View in: PubMed

  28. Alenghat FJ, Nauli SM, Kolb R, Zhou J, Ingber DE. Global cytoskeletal control of mechanotransduction in kidney epithelial cells. Exp Cell Res. 2004 Nov 15; 301(1):23-30. View in: PubMed

  29. Matthews BD, Overby DR, Alenghat FJ, Karavitis J, Numaguchi Y, Allen PG, Ingber DE. Mechanical properties of individual focal adhesions probed with a magnetic microneedle. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2004 Jan 16; 313(3):758-64. View in: PubMed

  30. Nauli SM, Alenghat FJ, Luo Y, Williams E, Vassilev P, Li X, Elia AE, Lu W, Brown EM, Quinn SJ, Ingber DE, Zhou J. Polycystins 1 and 2 mediate mechanosensation in the primary cilium of kidney cells. Nat Genet. 2003 Feb; 33(2):129-37. View in: PubMed

  31. Alenghat FJ, Ingber DE. Mechanotransduction: all signals point to cytoskeleton, matrix, and integrins. Sci STKE. 2002 Feb 12; 2002(119):pe6. View in: PubMed

  32. Alenghat FJ, Fabry B, Tsai KY, Goldmann WH, Ingber DE. Analysis of cell mechanics in single vinculin-deficient cells using a magnetic tweezer. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2000 Oct 14; 277(1):93-9. View in: PubMed

  33. Meyer CJ, Alenghat FJ, Rim P, Fong JH, Fabry B, Ingber DE. Mechanical control of cyclic AMP signalling and gene transcription through integrins. Nat Cell Biol. 2000 Sep; 2(9):666-8. View in: PubMed

  34. Poon C, Chowdhuri S, Kuo CH, Fang Y, Alenghat FJ, Hyatt D, Kani K, Gross ME, Chung EJ. Protein Mimetic and Anticancer Properties of Monocyte-Targeting Peptide Amphiphile Micelles. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering. 2017.::::
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