New approaches to antiarrhythmic therapy, part I - Emerging therapeutic applications of the cell biology of cardiac arrhythmias

Cardiac arrhythmias complicate many diseases affecting the heart and circul ation, and they incorporate a multiplicity of underlying mechanisms. The ev olution of scientific knowledge has made the complex changes produced by ca rdiovascular disease sufficiently understood at the organ, cellular, and mo lecular levels such that there is a diversity of therapeutic targets for ph armacological therapy and/or prevention. Moreover, the approach of rational drug design in mechanism-specific and disease-specific fashions facilitate s the targeting of therapy using the methods of molecular, structural, and translational biology. Additional approaches, using similar drug design str ategies but based on gene therapy and transcriptional and translational mod ification, are on the horizon. Hence, there is reason to be optimistic rega rding the design, testing, and clinical availability of novel antiarrhythmi c therapies.