Standard Research Methods For The Study of Cardiac Injury and Function

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Pierre-Emmanuel Noly

University of Montreal, Montreal Heart Institute

Pierre-Emmanuel Noly is a French and Canadian cardiac surgeon at the Montreal Heart Institute - the University of Montreal, where he is actively involved in the surgical treatment of heart failure. He undertook medical school at the University of Bordeaux II (France) and completed his cardiothoracic training in Paris, France. After a clinical fellowship in cardiac surgery at the Montreal Heart Institute, he continued his training in Canada. He graduated from the Cardiac Surgery from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and pursued as a heart failure fellow at the Toronto General Hospital University of Toronto. His clinical research focuses on outcomes after advanced therapies for acute and chronic heart failure and heart transplantation after donation after circulatory death. Dr. Noly accomplished his PhD at the University of Paris-Saclay, working on the physiology and physiopathology of right ventricle failure secondary to pulmonary hypertension. He is currently a research fellow at the Department of Cardiac Surgery University of Michigan and is involved in research focusing on improvement of heart preservation and ex-vivo heart perfusion and outcomes after durable mechanical circulatory support under the supervision of Dr. Francis D. Pagani and Dr. Paul C. Tang. Dr. Noly received several grants throughout his training.

Paul C. Tang

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Frankel Cardiovascular Center

Paul C. Tang is a cardiac surgery faculty at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center with a research focus on developing novel technologies for the molecular modulation of donor hearts to improve performance after transplantation. Work is ongoing to develop innovative therapies to improve the ischemic tolerance of donor hearts and increase the longevity of cardiac grafts by minimizing cardiac injury during transplantation. His laboratory investigates epigenetic changes in cardiac graft in order to develop new insights into the process of cardiac cryostatic preservation and reperfusion. His clinical research is focused on outcomes in heart transplantation and ventricular assist devices. The goal is to improve outcomes for patients experiencing advanced heart failure by developing an in-depth understanding of the benefits of various treatment strategies as well as developing new cardiac preservation technologies. Dr. Tang is also clinically active in the surgical treatment of heart failure including mechanical circulatory support and heart transplantation. He completed cardiothoracic surgery training at Duke University Medical Center where he also undertook advanced fellowships in heart transplantation, mechanical circulatory support and aortic surgery. He undertook medical school at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and has a PhD focused on cardiovascular immunology from Yale University. Dr. Tang’s academic work has received a number of research awards from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Thoracic Surgery Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Ienglam Lei

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Department of Cardiac Surgery

Ienglam Lei completed his undergraduate studies at Peking University and earned his PhD in Developmental Molecular Genetics from the University of Hong Kong. His prior postdoctoral research work at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor was focused on the epigenetic regulation of cardiac stem cell differentiation and myocardial infarction responses. He is currently a Research Investigator in Department of Cardiac Surgery at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Currently, his research studies the mechanisms of primary graft dysfunction in donor hearts following transplantation using both ex-vivo perfusion and transplant models. His goal is to develop therapeutic advances for improving donor heart function and ischemic tolerance.

Collection Overview

This collection will highlight methods to study whole organ heart function as well as studying cardiomyocyte contractility at the cellular level. Furthermore, key methods to induce and examine responses to cardiac injury will be included. Therefore, we will solicit contributions for the following: Study of primary graft dysfunction of donor hearts using ex vivo Langendorff large and small animal heart perfusion, small and large animal heart transplants in both deceased cardiac and/or brain death models. We will plan to include methods in mice echocardiography and arrhythmia induction/study. We will also aim to include methods in the study of single cardiomyocyte contractility including isometric force measurements, sarcomere shortening and measurement of calcium transients. Furthermore, to include models of cardiac injury, we can aim to include cardiac injury models such as coronary artery ligation and transaortic constriction.