Dr. Charles Antzelevitch, executive director and director or research of the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory and members of the scientific staff will be announcing a landmark discovery at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago.

Dr. Antzelevitch will be presenting a talk regarding a new clinical entity responsible for Sudden Cardiac Death at the "Late Breaking Abstract Session". The syndrome is caused by mutations in the cardiac calcium channels of the heart. The malfunctioning genes called CACNA1C and CACNB2b are responsible for an electrical imbalance that results in a potentially fatal heart rhythm.

The new clinical entity is a combination of two distinct clinical sudden death syndromes, Brugada and Short QT syndromes, whose genetic basis was previously identified at the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory. The mutations in the two calcium channel genes lead to a high risk of sudden cardiac death due to recalculating electrical activity within the heart.

Dr. Antzelevitch will describe the ion channel defects produced by three different mutations in these genes found in three families with a family history of sudden cardiac death. Dr. Guido Pollevick will also present a poster at the AHA meeting regarding additional aspects of this exciting discovery.