Sung Jin Park, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech/Emory University

The cellular phenotypes caused by inherited arrhythmia mutations have been studied using human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). However, arrhythmias are the emergent properties of cells assembled into tissues, and the impact of these mutations on tissue-level properties of human myocardium has not been reported. In this talk, I will present an in vitro hiPSC-CM-based platform to study the tissue-level properties of engineered human myocardium. I will illustrate how this hiPSC-CM-based platform can be used to investigate pathogenic mechanisms in the deadly, exercise-triggered inherited arrhythmia catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT). In addition, I will show how we combined this novel platform with genome editing and identified new therapeutic target for CPVT.