Ajit Magadum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences & ACDC at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. He earned his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Germany in 2014.
During his postdoctoral tenure at Mount Sinai in New York, he made significant advancements in developing mRNA or modified mRNA (modRNA) delivery systems tailored for the cardiovascular system, utilizing various carriers to ensure robust and sustained mRNA expression within cardiac tissues. In 2016, he developed the first-of-its-kind cell-specific mRNA delivery platform known as SMRTs (Specific Modified mRNA Translation System). This innovation allowed for precise targeting of mRNA expression in either cardiomyocytes or non-cardiomyocytes within the heart, paving the way for cell-specific mRNA therapeutics for CVD. He joined Temple University in 2020 as an Associate Scientist. His ground-breaking research has identified a series of novel genes (five targets) delivered as mRNA to the heart, promoting cardiomyocyte proliferation, cardiac regeneration, angiogenesis, and inhibition of cardiac hypertrophy, oxidative stress and fibrosis. He has published over 25 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and have multiple patents, which have been licensed to leading biotechnology companies. In recognition of his contributions, He received the Outstanding Research Innovation Award from Mount Sinai Hospital in 2017 for his work on mRNA therapeutics for CVD. In 2022, he was honoured with the ISHR-NAS Young Investigator Award (runner-up) and the Melvin L. Marcus Early Career Investigator Award from the American Heart Association (AHA, finalist) in 2022.
Currently, his research focuses on identifying novel targets and leveraging mRNA and cell-specific mRNA as innovative therapeutic modalities to target CVD.
