Noah Poulin
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Mentor(s): Todd Herron, Research Assistant Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Internal Medicine and Cardiology, Michigan Medicine
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 6 (4pm-4:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 11
Presenter: 1
Abstract
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM for short, is a hidden disease of the muscle cells of the heart that often goes diagnosed. While HCM can often present little to no symptoms, 5-10% of patients experience “overt dysfunction”, which is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death among young people. HCM is a dysfunction of the cardiac muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) that cause the sarcomere tissue of the heart to thicken as a bicep or quadricep would during exercise, leading to reduced cardiac function. The extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) pathway is a chain of proteins that is heavily involved in the proliferation of cells. We believe that this pathway, when defective, is responsible for HCM. Two steps in this pathway, MEK1 and MEK2, can be blocked by an experimental drug called Trametinib. First we have generated atrial and ventricular specific microtissues using control patient cells. Data shows that chamber specific cells have distinct function and force generating capacity. These tissues will be made for HCM patient cells to test the new therapy. The end goal is that we discover an effective treatment for cardiomyopathy.
Authors: Noah Poulin, Nicholas Peck-Dimit, Jeffery Creech, Bianca Gunawan, Andre Monteiro da Rocha, Todd Herron
Research Method: Laboratory Research
