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Heart function and failure are controlled by complex signaling and transcriptional networks that are just beginning to be mapped out. Our lab combines computational modeling and live-cell microscopy to identify these molecular networks and understand how they mediate cell decisions.
We are tackling a number of unexplained cellular decisions that are fundamental to the development of heart failure. For example, after myocardial infarction, what causes a given myocyte to choose enhanced contractility, growth, or death? Why do certain stresses cause myocyte lengthening, while other stresses increase myocyte thickness? Why are certain forms of heart growth reversible while others are irreversible? Answers to these basic science questions are being translated into novel strategies to re-engineer the failing heart.
News:
Jan 2012:
Congratulations to Lindsay McLellan for acceptance to UVa Med School!
Jason Yang's paper "Phospholemman is a negative feed-forward regulator of Ca2+ in beta-adrenergic signaling, accelerating beta-adrenergic inotropy" accepted in J Mol Cell Cardiol.
Dec 2011:
** Updated movies! **
Undergraduates in our lab are first author on 5 publications in the past year!
Collaboration with Jin Zhang's lab, "Regulation of nuclear PKA revealed by spatiotemporal manipulation of cAMP," accepted in Nature Chemical Biology.
Former undergraduate Greg Bass is first author on a new method for automated image processing of cardiac myocyte hypertrophy in Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.
July 2011:
Robert Amanfu, Karen Ryall and Jason Yang present their work at the AHA Basic Cardiovascular Science meeting in New Orleans.
Click here for archived news
Positions Available:
Graduate Students - apply to UVA Biomedical Engineering here and email Dr. Saucerman for more information about specific opportunities.
Post-doc and Undergrad Students - email Dr. Saucerman for more information