American Heart Association Undergraduate Summer Research Experience

Dr. Eckhardt is a physician-scientist with a long-standing interest in the prevention of sudden death from arrhythmic etiologies. She has dedicated her research and clinical career to the prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD), a major cause of death in the United States. Dr. Eckhardt’s translational research lab is inspired by the Cardiac Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic at the University of Wisconsin where she and her colleagues in Cardiology treat individuals and families with a wide range of Inherited Arrhythmia Syndromes associated with sudden death. Her lab studies an important ionic current associated with sudden death syndromes called I_K1, focusing on the cellular dynamics, regulation, and macromolecular complex of I_K1, and the contribution to inherited and acquired arrhythmia syndromes.

The Kamp lab focuses on understanding basic mechanisms of arrhythmias and strategies for cardiac regeneration of the failing heart. Human pluripotent stem cells are a central element of the research in Dr. Kamp’s lab. These master stem cells can differentiate into all the major cell types present in the heart providing unlimited quantities of human heart cells for research as well as therapeutic applications. The Kamp lab has pioneered this technology developing ever improving methods for the robust production of cardiomyocytes from human pluripotent stem cells as well as other cell populations such as cardiac fibroblasts.

The goal of Dr. Liu’s lab is to investigate pathophysiology of vascular diseases and translate bench findings to new therapies and implantable devices. The Liu lab utilizes interdisciplinary approaches that combine in vitro molecular and biochemical methodologies with transgenic, gene knockout/editing, multi-omics as well as surgical technologies. Their recent discoveries include proteomics of extracellular vesicles, single cell transcriptomics of vascular tissues, posttranslational regulatory mechanisms underlying cell death in disease, cell-cell communications, and development of 3D printed vascular devices.

Work in the Robertson laboratory focuses on the root causes of catastrophic cardiac arrhythmias and therapeutic approaches for their treatment. Specifically, studies examine biophysical mechanisms disrupted by disease-causing mutations using voltage-clamp technologies in both heterologous expression systems and cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-CMs), an experimental “heart in a dish.” The Robertson lab uses single-chain antibody fragments to probe ion channel function; they develop the same fragments into drugs to treat arrhythmia by counteracting the action potential prolongation associated with long QT syndrome, a leading cause of sudden cardiac death.

The goal of Dr. Alvarado’s research is to understand the mechanisms underlying heart disease and to develop safe and effective treatments that improve the life of patients. His primary interest is the regulation of cardiac ion channels with emphasis on diseases arising from their dysfunction. Ongoing research explores how ryanodine receptor 2 (RyR2), a major calcium-release channel, is regulated in the healthy heart and contributes to the onset and progression of heart disease. In addition, Dr. Alvarado’s laboratory explores potential therapeutic strategies that can modulate RyR2 function. His laboratory uses unique animal models and a combination of several state-of-the-art techniques that span from the single molecule to the whole heart, including single channel recordings, radioligand assays, mutagenesis, western blotting, confocal imaging, cellular electrophysiology, isolated heart perfusions, among others.