Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of human death all over the world. My laboratory have been focused in understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the development of cardiac arrhythmias during an increase in the heart rate (tachycardia) and after a cardiac infarction (ischemia).
Controlling the development of this cardiac arrhythmias will dramatically improve the rate of survival after a cardiac episode.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNAs of 21–22 nucleotides with a significant role in gene regulation. They base-pair with the 3’UTR of a targeted mRNA whilst in association with Argonaute, the effector protein of the miRNA mediated silencing complex (miRISC), and causes translation repression and/or degradation. We are interested in understanding the fundamental properties of cell intrinsic miRNA and extracellular miRNA that are found in cell free body fluids and their contribution to viral infections, disease pathologies, disease diagnosis and treatment.
Professor Spencer seeks to to develop novel optical imaging and sensing systems for applications in tissue regeneration, transplantation, and cancer.
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Professor Subramaniam seeks to understand the fundamental physicochemical mechanisms that govern the assembly and function of biomembranes. His lab group combines experimental tools from soft matter physics, chemistry, and molecular biology to tackle cutting-edge challenges in biomembrane engineering and bottom-up synthetic biology.
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