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In 'The Checkup' podcast, Selwyn Vickers, M.D., FACS, dean of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, brings you into the heart of UAB's thriving academic medical center by exploring unique campus programs, innovative concepts, and ground-breaking research. Dr. Vickers interviews guests with diverse backgrounds, and has candid conversations with the people who are powering science and medicine at UAB, in Birmingham, and around the globe.
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In his November episode, Vickers interviews Adam Wende, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology. Together, they discuss the racial and socioeconomic disparities associated with heart failure outcomes. The two collaborated on an article, "Racial and socioeconomic disparity associates with differences in cardiac DNA methylation among men with end-stage heart failure," in the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology, published in May 2021. The article, with co-authors Mark Pepin, Ph.D., and Bertha Hidalgo, Ph.D.,MPH, links socioeconomic factors to changes in DNA chemistry and heart failure.

Take a listen and learn more about this fascinating research discussion between Vickers and Wende covering DNA, epigenetics and methylation in the episode, "The HEARTbreaking impact of socioeconomic disparities." Vickers discusses how the research might be, "an insight into what might be the future of precision medicine in this population."