Dr Michele Miragoli

Dr. Michele Miragoli is a Research Associate within the Functional Microscopy research group, headed by Dr. Julia Gorelik at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.

I studied Science Biology at the University of Parma, Italy. I completed the Ph.D program at the Institute of Physiology in Parma, under the supervision of Prof. Macchi. During the PhD period I was the winner of a scholarship award for advance training period in the foreign country and I chose to go learning the novel technique of optical recording of transmembrane voltage at the most prominent laboratory (Prof. Stephan Rohr’s lab) at Institute of Physiology, University of Bern, Switzerland. After my PhD degree I remained at Rohr’s lab to start a new project related to myofibroblasts and their potential role in cardiac arrhythmia. Our findings suggest that stromal cells in diseased hearts influence the electrophysiology of cardiomyocytes and, thus, may directly affect overall electrical function of the organ. Moreover, our observation that occurrence of arrhythmogenic ectopic activity in cardiac tissue is based not only on defects in the cellular electrophysiology of the cardiomyocytes themselves (the classic view), but that it can be caused by heterocellular electrotonic interactions between cardiomyocytes and other cell types residing in the diseased working myocardium. Those cells might ultimately lead to the identification of new antiarrhythmic therapeutic strategies which are specifically aimed at cells different from cardiomyocytes.

In March 2008 I approached the group of Dr. Gorelik at Imperial College London for combining scanning ion conductance microscopy with my expertise, i.e. optical recording of intracellular calcium and transmembrane voltage. I was enthusiast in working personally for assembling and testing this unique setup. This non-invasive system was operative at the beginning of 2009 and permits to study the characteristics of membrane potential and calcium transient with the live dynamic of cell membrane.

My personal interested is related into the translational field of fetal and adult arrhythmogenesis, in seeking to understand a proper therapeutic approach. The existing anti-arrhythmic therapy is largely ineffective and in a several cases become pro-arrhythmogenic itself. My recent discovery of a in-vitro coupling between myofibroblasts (fibrotic cardiac tissue) and cardiomyocytes (working cardiac tissue) opens a totally new perspective in understand cardiac arrhythmic mechanism and therapy, not only because of the new arrhythmogenic substrates but also because several causes (coronary syndromes, air pollution, tropical diseases, metabolic diseases etc.) might impact upon this likelihood.

Personal Awards

• 2009: Winner of the “Young Investigator research prize”, of the Italian Society of Cardiovascular research and the National Institute of Cardiovascular Research, 31 October 2009, Imola (IT)
• 2008: Winner of the Swiss Cardiovascular Biology Prize sponsored by Pfizer, of the Swiss Society of Cardiology (24 May 2008, Bern Switzerland)
• 2007: 1st place for Best Poster Competition, Tissue Level, Gordon Research Conference, Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms. (February 2007, Ventura, California).
• 2004: Winner of Asher-Hess Prize, young investigator award, Annual Meeting of the Swiss Physiological Society, Institute of Physiology, (Fribourg Switzerland).
• 2001:  Young Research award, from University of Parma  'Mechanisms of initiation and propagation of paced stimulus'.
• 2000:   Winner of 12 months scholarship from University of Parma for Advanced training period in foreign country during PhD program, spent at the Institute of Physiology, University of Bern, Switzerland.