From Gene Expression to Function – A Pipeline for Manipulating and Characterizing Human iPSC-cardiomyocytes

Emilia Entcheva, PhD 
George Washington University

Abstract: Animal models, especially transgenic rodent models, have enhanced our understanding of cardiovascular function at the molecular level. Yet, they come with some limitations in their relevance to human health and the suitability to assess personalized responses to treatment. In this talk, several technological approaches will be outlined to illustrate how we can build a pipeline for manipulating and characterizing human stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) in a high-throughput manner. The techniques involve microfluidics, non-contact optical methods for functional analysis coupled with newer scalable gene and protein quantification methods. These efforts are meant to contribute to building a compelling framework for testing pharmacological and gene therapies for personalized medicine.

Biography: Professor Emilia Entcheva directs the Cardiac Optogenetics and Optical Imaging Laboratory at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, George Washington University. Her research group combines biophotonics tools with human stem-cell-derived cardiomyocyte technology and gene editing approaches to aid the advancement of personalized medicine. The lab played a key role in bringing optogenetic approaches to the cardiac field and validating their use experimentally and computationally. They have implemented highly parallel platforms for interrogation of cardiac function using human stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes. Recently, the lab has embarked on projects that leverage all-optical cardiac electrophysiology, on-demand oxygenation, microfluidics, optical instrumentation and control, and transcriptomics analysis to help improve the maturity of engineered human heart tissues and their use in drug-screening applications. Professor Entcheva is an AIMBE Fellow and her work is supported by the NSF and NIH.