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Heart Regeneration
The heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) of adult mammalian hearts are essentially nonproliferative; thus, cardiac disease or injury frequently progesses to heart failure, because the heart cannot regenerate damaged myocardial tissue​. Yet, newborn (neonatal) mammalian heart can regenerate, and this capability is lost seven days after birth. How does heart regeneration happen, why do mammalian hearts lose this capability seven day after birth, and can we prolong or reactivate it after this seven-day timepoint?
Cardiac Cell Engineering
Since cardiomyocytes are naturally very difficult to regenerate, one strategy is injecting artificial heart cells into the injured heart (cell transplantation). The transplanted cells (graft) need to survive and grow inside the injured heart (host) to replace the lost host cells during injury. The stem cells have a very high proliferating capacity and can differentiate into multiple cardiac cell types. Therefore, cardiac stem cells was chosen to transplant. Then, how do we artificially produce these cells, how to enhance their key capabilities, and how to deliver them into the injured heart?
Genetic Modification in Heart
The cardiac cell functions, including proliferation in cardiomyocyte, are regulated by many genes. Therefore, manipulating the proliferation regulators may improve heart regeneration and functions. How do we find the right regulators (such as VEGF and signaling pathways associated to heart generations), how do we design the biomaterial for modifying these genes, and how we deliver these materials specifically to the cell type where we want them to work?
Bioinformatics, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Research
To understand the causes and risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, Cardiovascular Researchers have been generating a very large amount of data. The data are not only massive in size but also complex. The data include genetic, functional image, electrophysiology, and even more. Therefore, new approaches to analyze the data using Big Data and Artifical Intelligence is required. Learn more ...
