Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a heart disease that leads to a stressed, swollen heart muscle. Due to a poor understanding of underlying mechanisms, effective clinical treatments are not available. Patients receive generic heart medication and sometimes need open-heart surgery to remove excess tissue. Researchers at the Hubrecht Institute have now successfully applied a new revolutionary technology (scRNA-seq) to uncover underlying disease mechanisms, including specifically those causing the swelling. The extensive “big data” set is a treasure trove of novel observations that give insight in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and potential new therapeutic venues. The results from this study, done by researchers in the group of Eva van Rooij, were published in the journal Cell Reports on the 10th of May.