Dr. Robert Mallet’s research focuses on developing treatments to protect the heart and brain from heart attack, stroke, and cardiac arrest. These three diseases, which result from interruptions in the blood flow to the heart and/or brain, are among the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. Dr. Mallet’s team has discovered that breathing air containing reduced amounts of oxygen, for a few daily exposures lasting a few minutes each, causes adaptations in the heart and brain that make these organs much more resistant to interruptions in their blood flow. As a result, the damage to the heart and brain inflicted by temporary loss of blood flow is greatly decreased, enabling these vital organs to recover and resume their normal function.
Current work in the Mallet laboratory is studying the favorable changes in the brain’s and heart’s biochemical makeup which underlie the adaptations to low oxygen, so that these adaptations can be safely harnessed to help human patients survive and recover from strokes, heart attacks, and cardiac arrest.