Myocardial Function
Professor Siân Harding, Head of Section
Myocardial Function is a section within the Cardiovascular arm of the NHLI. The focus of the Section is the adult myocardium, and particularly the cardiomyocyte, in health and disease. Acute and chronic heart failure studies encompass syndromes such as congenital-, myocardial infarction- or aortic constriction-induced failure, Stress Cardiomyopathy and chemotherapy-induced damage. We investigate the effect on the adult cardiomyocyte during reversal of heart failure by gene or cell therapy or by unloading-induced remodelling.
A particular strength of the section is the breadth of advanced optical and sub-optical imaging methods for myofilament interactions, single cardiomyocytes, cell co-cultures, tissue slices and whole hearts. Spatial resolution of calcium events and signalling pathway activation is explored through real-time confocal and FRET imaging, and mapped to suboptical structures by Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy. Studies on myofilament activation and the phosphoproteome explore mechanisms of both genetic and acquired heart failure. Translational aspects of the work range from the use of human myocardial tissue from relevant patients to the establishment of a clinical Gene Therapy trial. Development of models of the human cardiomyocyte from embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells is extending the range and speed of investigations, and giving the potential to understand the phenotype expression of human genetic variants.
Work in this Section is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Wellcome Trust, MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, NC3Rs, Rosetrees Foundation and from industry collaborations. From Spring 2012 the groups in this Section will move to a new build on the Hammersmith Hospital Campus, which brings the Cardiovascular groups in NHLI together in one place for the first time. The NHLI floors have been generously supported by the British Heart Foundation and give access to state-of-the art facilities.
Research groups
Dr Julia Gorelik - Functional Microscopy
Professor Sian Harding - Cardiac Pharmacology
Dr Ken MacLeod - Cardiac Cell Ionic Regulation
Professor Steven Marston - Contractile Proteins
Dr Nazima Pathan -
Professor Nicholas Peters - Electrophysiology & pacing
Dr Cesare Terracciano - Cell Electrophysiology
