Kara E. McCloskey
UC Merced
USA
Title: Vascularized cardiac tissue from induced pluripotent-derived cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells
Biography
Biography: Kara E. McCloskey
Abstract
According to the American heart association, myocardial infarctions (MI) occur once every forty-four seconds in the United States. The chronic conditions that can develop from the damaged tissue requires the use of daily medications, pacemakers, and/or organ replacement in order to prevent congestive heart failure. Cardiovascular tissue engineering holds promising solutions to replace the need for whole heart transplants, and has made substantial progress towards repairing heart function after a MI. However, key challenges facing tissue engineering are 1) the source, 2) the packaging/delivery of cardiomyocytes (CM) in a manner that enables both cell survival and host integration, and vascularization of the new tissue. Our laboratory has developed a number of cell differentiation methods and engineering strategies addressing these key challenges in building functional heart tissue in vitro.