Description of CVI Expertise

Director, Molecular Arrhythmia Research

CVI Program Unit(s):
Channel Biology / Electrophysiology
Pulmonary Vascular Disease

CVI Research Description:
The research in our laboratory is focused on elucidating molecular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmogenesis and conduction disease. We are using genetically engineered mouse models of human arrhythmogenic disorders to investigate arrhythmia mechanisms at the level of the whole heart, the cardiomyocyte and molecule. This integrative approach is accomplished by using the murine in vivo electrophysiology technique in combination with the whole-cell patch clamp technique and employing standard molecular and biochemical approaches.

Specifically, our lab has several areas of interest with active research projects investigating:

1) The role and contribution to atrial arrhythmogenesis of a newly identified melanocyte-like cell population in the mouse and human pulmonary veins.

2) Investigate the contribution of plakoglobin to ion channel stabilization and myocardial cAMP levels, and their role in cardiac arrhythmogenesis, using plakoglobin knockout mice and mice harboring the Naxos mutation in plakoglobin.

3) The transcriptional regulation of cardiac conduction system development and function in mouse models engineered with conduction system deletion of specific transcription factors using an inducible Cx40-Cre transgenic mouse.

4) The role and contribution of microRNAs and histone deacetylases to atrial fibrosis and arrhythmogenesis in genetically engineered mouse models of cardiac hypertrophy.