Anis Hanna

About Anis Hanna

I have a passion for dissecting the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cardiac fibrosis and remodeling, and my goal is to identify novel therapeutic targets for heart failure patients. My current focus is on solving a central dilemma in cardiovascular medicine: how to stop the pathological, expansive fibrosis that drives heart failure without compromising the essential, reparative scar that preserves cardiac integrity after a myocardial infarction (MI). To address this, we investigate the cellular heterogeneity that orchestrates cardiac repair, hypothesizing that the key to new therapies lies in understanding how different cell populations are organized in space and time. The ultimate goal is to target the pathological effects of certain infarct cell subpopulations while preserving the beneficial role of other subsets.To achieve this, we employ multi-modal omics to build and analyze atlas-level, spatiotemporal datasets of the healing heart. We use single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to map every cell in its native tissue context. We complement this with sequential immunofluorescence for high-plex spatial proteomics. Our integrative bioinformatics and machine learning-based image analysis enable us to integrate these multi-layered big data into a cohesive understanding of cardiac injury and repair.This work builds upon our foundational expertise and published studies exploring the role of TGF-beta/Smad signaling in cardiac remodeling (Circ. Res. 2019, JCI 2022), integrin signaling in the infarcted heart (Nat. Commun. 2023, Commun. Biol. 2025), the mechanisms of cardiac rupture (AJP-Heart 2020), and collagen denaturation in the infarct scar (Matrix Biology 2021). Our recent high-impact work deciphering the heterogeneity of cardiac pericytes in diabetes (JAHA 2023) and MI (Circulation 2023) uncovered novel pericyte complexity in heart disease. In addition to our ambitious work uncovering the protective role of Smad1 in a regulatory myofibroblast subpopulation following MI (manuscript under revision; selected for the American Heart Association\'s Katz Award for Early Stage Investigators).

Experience

1. Associate Editor

   Frontiers

   Apr 2023 — Present

Education

• Alexandria University

  Doctor of Medicine - MD

Skills

• Immunofluorescence
• Spss
• Doctoral
• Oncology
• Data Analytics
• Animal Surgery
• Microsoft Office
• Autopsy
• Secondary Research
• Clinical Research Associates
• Cross-Cultural Communication Skills
• Team Spirit
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (Pcr)
• Statistical Data Analysis
• Ich
• Good Clinical Practice (Gcp)
• Molecular Cloning
• Animal Models
• Clinical Research
• Clinical Data Management
• Organization Skills
• Content Writing
• Team Leadership
• Rna Biology
• Cell Based Assays
• Molecular & Cellular Biology
• Elisa
• Molecular Oncology
• Cell Culture
• Collaboration
• Research Writing
• Western Blotting
• Facs
• Entrepreneurship