Profiles of Current and Former Research Track Fellows
Timothy Cashman, MD, PhD, is a first-year clinical fellow at UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center. At UMass Chan, Dr. Cashman has followed the 2+3+2 ABIM research pathway: two years of medicine residency, three years of bench research (with a half day per week of clinic), and two years of clinical cardiology fellowship.
Dr. Cashman received his bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and art history from Bowdoin College. After his undergraduate education, he worked as a research technician with Drs. Caroline and Geoff Burns at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he investigated cardiac regeneration research in zebrafish. He subsequently completed his MD and PhD degrees at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he developed preclinical models of cardiovascular disease using engineered human cardiac tissues with Kevin Costa, PhD.
When seeking residency and fellowship, Dr. Cashman was drawn to UMass Chan for its supportive and approachable environment as well as its clinical and academic rigor. He finished his two-year residency in 2019, then joined the lab of Chinmay Trivedi, MD, PhD, in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. With the support of Dr. Trivedi, he investigated the basic science of cardiac development and adult cardiac disease through the lens of epigenetics. He is drawn to epigenetics as it combines genetic and environmental risk factors in the development of cardiac disease, which he finds particularly relevant to the adult cardiology patient population. During his research years, he was funded in large part by the UMass Chan T32 Training Grant. After three and a half years on the bench, he is excited to be back to full-time clinical medicine during the final stage of his training.
Current research funding: K23HL161432 (Tran), 2022-2027. The Role of Highly Inflamed Epicardial Adipose Tissue in the Development of Atrial Fibrillation
Representative publications:
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Kant S, Tran KV, Kvandova M, Caliz AD, Yoo HJ, Learnard H, Dolan AC, Craige SM, Hall JD, Jimenez JM, St Hilaire C, Schulz E, Kroller-Schon S and Keaney JF, Jr. PGC1alpha Regulates the Endothelial Response to Fluid Shear Stress via Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase Control of Heme Oxygenase-1. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2022;42:19-34.
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Tran KV, Brown EL, DeSouza T, Jespersen NZ, Nandrup-Bus C, Yang Q, Yang Z, Desai A, Min SY, Rojas-Rodriguez R, Lundh M, Feizi A, Willenbrock H, Larsen TJ, Severinsen MCK, Malka K, Mozzicato AM, Deshmukh AS, Emanuelli B, Pedersen BK, Fitzgibbons T, Scheele C, Corvera S, Nielsen S. Human thermogenic adipocyte regulation by the long noncoding RNA LINC00473. Nat Metab. 2020;2(5):397-412.
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Tran KV, Majka J, Sanghai S, Sardana M, Lessard D, Milstone Z, Tanriverdi K, Freedman JE, Fitzgibbons TP, McManus D. Micro-RNAs Are Related to Epicardial Adipose Tissue in Participants With Atrial Fibrillation: Data From the MiRhythm Study. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2019;6:115.
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Tran KV, Fitzgibbons T, Min SY, DeSouza T, Corvera S. Distinct adipocyte progenitor cells are associated with regional phenotypes of perivascular aortic fat in mice. Mol Metab. 2018;9:199-206. Epub 2018/02/06. doi: 10.1016/j.molmet.2017.12.014. PubMed PMID: 29396370; PMCID: PMC5869733