Siddique Abbasi, MD

Medical Director and Global Development Lead for Heart Failure at Amgen

1 Amgen Center Dr.
Mail Stop 27-3A
Thousand Oaks CA 91320
(805) 447-0238

Bio

Siddique A. Abbasi, MD, was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, a staff cardiologist at Rhode Island Hospital, and a staff cardiologist and Director of Heart Failure, Echocardiography, and Cardiac Magnetic Resonance at the Providence VA Medical Center. He was the Principal Investigator of a 5-month pilot project form the CPVB COBRE entitled, “Pulmonary Artery Stiffness and Right Ventricular Fibrosis in Pulmonary Hypertension: A Magnetic Resonance Study.” Dr. Abbasi’s project investigated the relationship between pulmonary artery stiffness to right ventricular fibrosis in an effort to better understand the maladaptive right ventricular response to increased ventricular pressure in pulmonary hypertension (Jankowich M, Abbasi SA, et al. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2019 May 30).

Dr. Abbasi completed a combined BA/MD program at St. Louis University where he studied Philosophy. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, followed by a clinical cardiology fellowship at the University of Illinois. Dr. Abbasi then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Cardiac MRI at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He stayed on at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a T32 research fellowship in Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging, while earning his Masters in Science (Epidemiology) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Abbasi’s primary research interest is in the study of cardiometabolic diseases with a focus on therapeutic interventions for heart failure. Dr. Abbasi is currently a Medical Director and Global Development Lead for Heart Failure at Amgen, where he oversees the clinical development of omecamtiv mecarbil, a first-in-class direct myosin activator for the treatment of heart failure. H specific responsibilities include execution of the pivotal Phase 3 cardiovascular outcomes study in heart failure, GALACTIC-HF, developing global product strategy as a member of the Product Team, leading development strategy and evidence generation activities in observational, non-clinical, and clinical research teams, and communicating project strategy to governance bodies. In addition, he continues to study metabolic diseases as a part of Amgen’s early development team studying therapeutic targets for obesity.

COBRE Abstract

Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH). Despite this, there are currently no therapies targeted at improving RV performance – in part, because the underlying mechanisms of RV dysfunction are incompletely understood. Important contributors of RV dysfunction observed in animal models of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) include glucose intolerance and insulin resistance. Recent work in patients with PAH has demonstrated that excess free fatty acids (FFA) found in peripheral blood is matched by myocardial triglyceride deposition (steatosis) in the RV, and is believed to contribute to the pathogenesis of RV failure. Given that RV dysfunction is an end-stage phenotype in PH patients in general, identifying the role of myocardial steatosis in RV dysfunction for patients with PH in general will further our understanding of the pathogenesis of RV failure. Furthermore, the knowledge that cardiac steatosis may contribute to RV dysfunction raises the possibility that therapies capable of protecting against (or reversing) lipotoxicity may improve RV function in patients with PH.

The goal of this pilot study is to elucidate the relationship between myocardial steatosis and RV dysfunction in patients with PH, and demonstrate reversibility of this phenotype using a lipoprotective therapy in omega-3 fatty acids (O3FA). Specifically, we propose to: 1) measure myocardial triglyceride content by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in patients with pulmonary hypertension, and 2) treat patients with pulmonary hypertension who have elevated myocardial triglyceride content with 4 grams of O3FA daily for six months with a primary end point of reducing RV steatosis and a secondary endpoint of improving RV systolic function. We hypothesize that RV steatosis by H1 spectroscopy will be associated with the degree of RV systolic function by CMR. We hypothesize that six months of therapy with O3FA will reduce myocardial steatosis and improve RV systolic function.

Publications

Abbasi SA, Shah RV, McNulty SE, Hernandez AF, Semigran MJ, Lewis GD, Jerosch-Herold M, Kim RJ, Redfield MM, Kwong RY. Left atrial structure and function in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: a RELAX substudy, PLOS One. 2016, in press
Murthy VL, Abbasi SA, Siddique J, et al. Transitions in Metabolic Health, and Long-Term Cardiovascular Health: Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2016, in press.
Heydari B, Abdullah S, Pottala JV, Shah R, Abbasi S, Mandry D, Francis SA, Lumish H, Ghoshhajra BB, Hoffmann U, Appelbaum E, Feng JH, Blankstein R, Steigner M, McConnell JP, Harris W, Antman EM, Jerosch-Herold M, Kwong RY. Effect of Omega-3 Acid Ethyl Esters on Left Ventricular Remodeling After Acute Myocardial Infarction: The OMEGA-REMODEL Randomized Clinical Trial. Circulation. 2016 Aug 2;134(5):378-91.
Shah RV, Murthy VL, Allison MA, Ding J, Budoff M, Frazier-Wood AC, Lima JA,Steffen L, Siscovick D, Tucker KL, Ouyang P, Abbasi SA, Danielson K, Jerosch-Herold M, Mozaffarian D. Diet and adipose tissue distributions: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2016 Mar;26(3):185-93.
Hulten E, Aslam S, Osborne M, Abbasi S, Bittencourt MS, Blankstein R. Cardiac sarcoidosis-state of the art review. Cardiovasc Diagn Ther. 2016 Feb;6(1):50-63.
Shah RV, Allison MA, Lima JA, Abbasi SA, Eisman A, Lai C, Jerosch-Herold M, Budoff M, Murthy VL. Abdominal fat radiodensity, quantity and cardiometabolic risk: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2016 Feb;26(2):114-22.
Shah RV, Murthy VL, Colangelo LA, Reis J, Venkatesh BA, Sharma R, Abbasi SA, Goff DC Jr, Carr JJ, Rana JS, Terry JG, Bouchard C, Sarzynski MA, Eisman A, Neilan T, Das S, Jerosch-Herold M, Lewis CE, Carnethon M, Lewis GD, Lima JA. Association of Fitness in Young Adulthood With Survival and Cardiovascular Risk: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. JAMA Intern Med. 2016 Jan;176(1):87-95.

Project Updates

Mentors

Funded Research

Siddique Abbasi, MD

Siddique Abbasi, MD

Ocean State Research Institute

Research Funded by

Quick Links