My research aims to uncover how inflammation permanently damages the heart valves. In autoimmune diseases, the body’s immune system goes into overdrive, releasing a surge of inflammatory chemical messengers – known as “cytokine storm”. When this happens, the heart valves get caught in the crossfire. We are studying how cells residing in the heart valves attempt to repair this damage, and how these repair efforts fail, leading to long-term damage to the tissue and overall heart function.
Impact
There are currently no curative medicines for heart valve diseases. They are highly specific to humans and difficult to study in animals. To combat this, our research uses human induced pluripotent stem cells to model the human valves. By understanding the process leading to irreversible damage and disease, we hope to identify new medicines to stop heart valve disease progression and protect the heart.
reNEW research
Dr Holly Voges, who leads the Heart Valve team, has developed a model of the heart valve using human induced pluripotent stem cells. This enables extensive research into heart valve disease. Currently, we are exploring how inflammatory cytokines can lead to scarring of the heart valve tissue using high throughput and fluorescent microscopy.
Image description
An inflamed heart valve organoid: Valve interstitial cells (yellow) maintain heart valve integrity. Inflammation triggers a change in gene expression (in nuclei, grey and magenta) transforming the cell to a disease state (cyan).
Credits
Serene Yeow, PhD Student, Porrello Lab, reNEW Melbourne.
