About

The Aromolaran Laboratory is located within the Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute and is focused on elucidating how normal cardiac electrical and biophysical properties are altered in obesity and associated pathologies (diabetes, inflammation and lipotoxicity).

Obesity is an important contributor to the increased risk of supraventricular arrhythmia incidence and mortality, suggesting that the obesity epidemic poses a significant public health problem, with over one-third of the world population being either overweight or obese. An important goal of my laboratory is to identify and validate novel pathways in the setting of metabolic disorders that will improve our knowledge of rational development of dietary and therapeutic interventions. Specifically, we focus on adverse remodeling of major cardiac ionic mechanisms including the delayed rectifier K channels which play a critical role in cardiac repolarization. The Aromolaran lab utilizes state-of-the-art electrophysiological, optical, biochemical, and molecular techniques, as well as cardiomyocytes and more recently macrophages.

Ademuyiwa S. Aromolaran, PhD, FAHA, FHRS

Associate Professor of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery; Investigator, Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute (CVRTI)

Dr. Aromolaran’s research is focused on ion channel (K, Ca, Na) electrophysiology and elucidating cellular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias due to inherited mutations in channel subunits or acquired in metabolic disorders (obesity, diabetes, lipotoxicity, inflammation). He has published his research in numerous scientific journals and has been funded by both the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH). Dr. Aromolaran has served on review boards, institutional committees, and AHA and NIH study sections. He has served as co-director of the NHLBI-funded program to increase diversity in cardiovascular research and is currently actively involved in training and mentoring students and early career investigators from different research backgrounds.

His current NIH-funded work includes the R01 project ‘Channelopathies of Inflammation,’ which studies how chronic inflammation drives ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in obesity.

Education

• Undergraduate — University of Ibadan — BSc
• Graduate Training — King’s College London — MSc
• Doctoral Training — St George’s, University of London — PhD
• Research Fellow — Loyola University Medical Center
• Graduate Training — Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences — Graduate Certificate

He also serves as Assistant Vice President for Compliance at the University of Utah and Chairperson of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).