Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the US and the world. To this date, no heart regeneration strategies are available. As such, finding ways to strengthen and support the function of the heart will maximize our chances of turning findings into therapies.
We believe that these discoveries start at the level of understanding the basic biology of cells that constitute our hearts. How cells know they need to grow or shrink in response to external signals such as mechanical forces and nutrients? How the interaction of multiple cells types modify the function and contractile capacity of the heart? What are the differences in internal signals happening inside healthy vs. diseased heart cells? These are some of the questions that guide our curiosity-driven exploration of how our bodies work. To this end here are some of our ongoing projects in the lab:
How does the heart control it’s own weight?
Post-translational modification in response to (un)loading
Contractile and metabolic adaptations of myocardial cells to (un)loading
Protein homeostasis and turnover during myocardial (un)loading
Nuclear-cytoplasmic trafficking regulators of muscle growth responsive to muscle (un)loading
