Dr. Antonio Abbate Honored

By Anne Dreyfuss
C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright
Center for Clinical and Translational Research

At a study abroad program in Fondi, a city halfway between Rome and Naples in central Italy, Henrico-native Krishna Ravindra discovered a passion for clinical and translational science. “Working with Dr. Abbate allowed me to see how a background in clinical medicine and translational research can allow one to not only help patients based on the current medicine available, but also have the opportunity to explore novel therapeutic strategies to improve patient care,” Ravindra said of Dr. Antonio Abbate, who leads the Virginia Commonwealth University study abroad trip hosted by the Instituto San Francesco and the University Campus Biomedico of Rome. During the three-week program, undergraduate VCU Honors College students study the signs and symptoms of disease and explore clinical and translational research.

When they returned to Richmond in the fall of 2017, Ravindra asked Abbate if he could shadow him during his clinical rotations at VCU Medical Center and volunteer on Abbate’s research team. Abbate, who is an associate director at the VCU C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, serves as the James C. Roberts, Esq. Professor of Cardiology at the VCU School of Medicine, as well as a practicing cardiologist at the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center and medical director at the VCU Medical Center Clinical Research Unit. “I am always happy to open my research team to undergraduate students,” Abbate said, adding that he became involved in research when he was 20 years old and benefitted from working with mentors who shared their enthusiasm for medical discovery and innovation early in his career. “It is important to offer students an opportunity to see what gets you up in the morning,” he said.

In the ensuing years Ravindra continued to volunteer on research projects under Abbate’s mentorship, including working with Abbate through the VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. On April 24 Abbate was recognized for his work through that program with the VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Faculty Mentor Award, an honor that recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated a commitment to regularly go above and beyond to engage undergraduate students in research opportunities.

“Dr. Abbate placed an enormous amount of faith in me as an undergraduate student to complete complex chart reviews, patient analyses, and retrospective data analyses,” Ravindra said.

Through UROP, Ravindra worked with Abbate on a retrospective analysis of patients who were treated at VCU Medical Center for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a complex clinical condition in which a person suddenly develops heart failure after emotional or physical stressors. Ravindra also worked on another research project aimed to predict the degree of cardiorespiratory fitness impairment in heart failure patients across a wide range of ejection fraction measurements, which indicate how much blood the left heart ventricle pumps with each contraction.

For four months Ravindra worked with Jessie van Wezenbeek, a graduate student from Amsterdam, on data collection and statistical analysis, which informed a manuscript detailing their findings. The manuscript published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine late last year and in November Ravindra presented the results of the pair’s research projects at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in Chicago.

“I would never have dreamed of getting to present at such a large conference as an undergraduate student before working with Dr. Abbate,” Ravindra said. “Working with Dr. Abbate opened that door for me, as he constantly pushed me out of my comfort zone and took time to teach me one-on-one.”

Ravindra said Abbate inspired him to pursue a career in clinical and translational science. In the fall he will start medical school at VCU. “Dr. Abbate has shaped my view of what it means to be a physician and has illuminated the benefits of being a physician-scientist,” he said. “He emphasized the bench-to-bedside process of clinical and translational research. Further, he showed me that the process of discovery is never-ending and that we can always strive to do more for our patients.”

Abbate has devoted a significant amount of effort toward training the next generation of clinical and translational scholars since joining VCU in 2007. In 2016, the School of Medicine awarded him with the Distinguished Mentor Award, an honor that recognizes significant contributions to the career development of others. In February, he was awarded the inaugural Thames-Kontos Mentoring Award from the VCU School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine.

The Wright Center has funded two faculty-mentored undergraduate clinical and translational research projects through UROP every year since 2014. This summer, the Wright Center will fund biomedical engineering student Yasmina Zeineddine to research spinal cord injuries with mentor Dr. Carrie Peterson, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at VCU College of Engineering. The Wright Center will also fund mechanical engineering student Sam Cole’s research on bioreactors for mechanical training of engineered tissues with mentor Dr. Joao Soares, who is an assistant professor at the VCU College of Engineering.

“The Wright Center is committed to fostering cross-campus collaborations with the VCU College of Engineering and other units on the VCU Monroe Park Campus with an aim of developing an interdisciplinary clinical and translational workforce that will be equipped to address emerging health care challenges,” said Wright Center Director Dr. F. Gerard Moeller. “We are happy to partner with the VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program to help inspire an early interest in clinical and translational research among undergraduate researchers.”