An international research team, including scientists from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, has produced a detailed molecular atlas of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The map captures the activity of roughly a million individual cells, offering a granular view of the disease's underlying biology.
HCM is a common genetic heart disorder that causes the heart muscle to thicken, raising the risk of arrhythmias and heart failure. The new atlas shows significant cellular variation within affected tissue, suggesting that the disease may take different forms in different patients. That heterogeneity could explain why current treatments work well for some people but not others.
The team's goal is to use this map to identify patient-specific disease mechanisms and targets, moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. While the work is still in its early stages, it provides a foundation for designing more precise, individualized therapies for HCM.