UCSF-Led Group Awarded $9 Million for Heart Inflammation Research
An international research network led in North America by UC San Francisco (UCSF) has received a $9 million award from the Leducq Foundation, a cardiovascular research funding organization, to uncover how the immune system attacks the heart and develop more precise treatments for myocarditis and other inflammatory heart muscle diseases.
“We still have no approved disease-specific medical therapy for myocarditis,” said Javid Moslehi, MD, William Grossman Distinguished Professor in Cardiology and chief of the UCSF Section of Cardio-Oncology and Immunology. “We know that T cells attack and damage the heart, but we don’t know exactly what those T cells are recognizing. If we can answer that question, we may be able to move from broadly suppressing the immune system to precisely targeting the cells that are causing disease.”
The UCSF-led CoeurTCR network was selected as one of four international Networks of Excellence funded by the Leducq Foundation in 2026. Moslehi will serve as North American coordinator. Burkhard Ludewig, DVM, PhD, of Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen and University Hospital Zurich, will serve as European coordinator. UCSF neurologist and immunologist Josiah Gerdts, MD, PhD, whose laboratory develops technologies to identify the targets recognized by T cells, is also a principal investigator in the network.
Myocarditis can arise from infections, autoimmune diseases, and certain medications, causing inflammation that damages the heart muscle. It can affect people of all ages, and there are about 1.5 million cases reported annually worldwide. Recognition of myocarditis has increased in recent years along with awareness of new forms of the disease, including myocarditis caused by cancer immunotherapies. Yet, its underlying biology remains poorly understood, and treatment still relies largely on broadly suppressing the immune system, which has shown limited success.
The central goal of CoeurTCR is to systematically identify the T cells involved in inflammatory heart disease, determine the cardiac antigens, or proteins, they recognize, and use that information to develop new therapies.
“The long-term goal is a fundamentally different approach to treating immune-mediated heart disease: turning off the T cells attacking the heart while leaving the rest of the immune system intact,” Gerdts said.
Building on UCSF’s cardio-immunology program
Moslehi established the UCSF Myocarditis Program within the section of Cardio-Oncology and Immunology in 2022, bringing together clinical care with laboratory investigation of the immune mechanisms underlying heart disease.
The UCSF Myocarditis Program has leveraged its clinical population and collected biospecimens for detailed immune and genomic analysis and deep phenotyping. In parallel, Moslehi’s laboratory has developed experimental models that reproduce key features of human myocarditis, allowing observations made in patients to be investigated mechanistically in the laboratory. These resources will now be combined with complementary patient cohorts and experimental models across the CoeurTCR network.
Collectively, consortium investigators have assembled cohorts of more than 750 patients with acute myocarditis, ICI-myocarditis and inflammatory cardiomyopathy, including matched blood and heart biopsy samples that will allow researchers to compare immune responses within the heart with those circulating in the bloodstream.
In addition, the network will integrate clinical cohorts, single-cell and T-cell receptor sequencing, experimental models, large-scale antigen discovery, and computational and AI protein design. Network researchers will help identify specific T cells subtypes driving disease as well as the antigen targets these T cells recognize. Once researchers identify the cardiac antigens and T-cell receptors driving disease, the team plans to design small proteins that can selectively interrupt those harmful interactions.
“This collaboration allows us to connect patients directly to fundamental immunology and ultimately to drug development,” Moslehi said. “We are grateful to the Leducq Foundation for recognizing the importance of this research.”
In addition to UCSF, the international research network (CoeurTCR) includes:
• HOCH Health Eastern Switzerland / Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen, Switzerland
• University Hospital Zurich (USZ), Switzerland
• Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), Spain
• Netherlands Cancer Institute
• Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark
• University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine
The grant will also establish an international training program to prepare the next generation of investigators working at the intersection of cardiovascular disease and immunology. At UCSF, that next generation includes Amir Munir, MD, and Richard Baylis, MD, PhD, early-career cardiologists (who also completed the UCSF cardio-oncology fellowship) and physician-scientists whose work bridges cardiovascular medicine, immunology, and translational research.
The CoeurTCR network is expected to begin its activities on Jan. 1, 2027.
About the Leducq Organization: The Leducq Foundation is among the world’s leading private funding organizations dedicated to cardiovascular research. Through its International Networks of Excellence program, the Foundation supports collaborative research teams that bring together outstanding scientific expertise to advance innovative approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular disease. The Leducq organization includes the Leducq Charitable Trust and the Leducq Foundation, both based in the Bahamas, the United States-based Leducq Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, a not-for-profit private foundation under the 501(c)(3) tax code, and Broadview Ventures, Inc., a Boston, Massachusetts based venture philanthropic program dedicated to accelerating the development of innovative technology for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and stroke through targeted investments. The Leducq Corporation, also located in Boston, MA, provides administrative services to the Leducq organization’s grant-making entities.
About UCSF Health: UCSF Health is recognized worldwide for its innovative patient care, reflecting the latest medical knowledge, advanced technologies and pioneering research. It includes the flagship UCSF Medical Center, which is highly-ranked hospital, as well as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, with campuses in San Francisco and Oakland; two community hospitals, UCSF Health Stanyan and UCSF Health Hyde; Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians; and the UCSF Faculty Practice. These hospitals serve as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which is world-renowned for its graduate-level health sciences education and biomedical research. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. Visit www.ucsfhealth.org. Follow UCSF Health on Facebook,Threads or LinkedIn.