The Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet has received a major new Grant from the National Institutes of Health, “Proteomic Signatures of Delirium and Long-Term Cognitive Decline in Older Cardiac Surgical Patients.” This five-year 7 million dollar grant, with Dr. Bala Subramaniam as Principal Investigator, is an interdisciplinary collaboration with the Systems Biology Lab at BIDMC. Delirium is a significant complication following heart surgery in older adults and leads to long-term complications, including Alzheimer’s disease, following heart surgery in these patients. The investigators will focus on identifying delirium biomarkers by using banked plasma specimens from the ongoing Pandora trial. They will use proteomics, a technique measuring levels of 11000 proteins in blood, to develop a panel of proteins that predict the risk of developing delirium and 12-month cognitive decline and independently validate them in the Pandora cohorts. Then they will decipher mechanisms behind the effectiveness of intravenous acetaminophen to prevent postoperative delirium, and ascertain the commonalities and differences between cardiac and non-cardiac surgical delirium mechanisms.