Sharlene Day graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received her MD degree from New York University School of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency and cardiovascular medicine fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Day spent 5 years as a postdoctoral research fellow in cardiovascular biology and physiology, with 4 years on an institutional training grant before being awarded a 5 year Fellow to Faculty Transition Grant from the American Heart Association. She started her own laboratory in 2006 and is currently funded on an R01 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Dr. Day has authored 26 manuscripts and has received several young investigator awards at national meetings. Her research interests are in the regulation of protein turnover and degradation in cardiomyopathies. She is particularly interested in the relationship between normal and mutant sarcomere proteins in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and hopes that her work will lead to gene-specific therapies in the future.

Dr. Day practices general cardiology and has been the director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Program at the University of Michigan since its inception in 2006. It is recognized as a Center of Excellence by the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association and has rapidly developed a national reputation. The program has grown to over 700 patients, and has recently expanded to include other inherited cardiovascular conditions. Dr. Day and her colleagues are involved in several institutional and multi-center research studies that she is optimistic will have a major impact on the natural history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  As a runner and triathlete herself, Dr. Day recognizes the important of healthy eating and regular exercise. She is conducting an exercise training study in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy to measure the importance of fitness in patients with this condition. She is also interested in seeing athletes with suspected heart problems.