Methods Development: The Two-Dimensional Heart
Dr Christian Bollensdorff and Mr Peter Lee
It has been known for several decades that thin sections of living cardiac tissue can be maintained and used for biological research. Nonetheless, in contrast to brain sections, broader application of this approach to the heart has only started in the past few years. One of the key motivations is to use these pseudo two-dimensional experimental models in direct iteration with computational studies which, at this level of complexity, provide particularly useful insight into general mechanisms underlying cardiac mechano-electrical function.
Several investigators at the Harefield Heart Science Centre pursue research in this context (see work by Dr Patrizia Camelliti); the focus of this group is on structure-function mapping in the area of mechano-electric interactions.
Funding: EP Abraham Fund and the Oxford Clarendon Fund.
Recent papers:
- deBoer TP, Camelliti P, Ravens U & Kohl P. Myocardial tissue slices: organotypic pseudo-twodimensional models for cardiac research & development Future Medicine 2009/5:425-430 (DOI).
- Xie Y, Garfinkel A, Camelliti P, Kohl P, Weiss JN & Qu Z. Effects of fibroblast-myocyte coupling on cardiac conduction and vulnerability to reentry: a computational study. Heart Rhythm 2009/6:1641-1649 (DOI).
- Garny A, Noble D & Kohl P. Dimensionality in cardiac modelling. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 2005; 87: 47-66 (DOI).
