Cardiovascular Therapeutics Lab: Clinical Trials in a Dish

Our Research

Our current work focuses on treating the damaged heart following myocardial infarction (MI) using two complementary strategies: (1) cellular therapy: biomimetic, tissue‑engineered scaffolds composed of human stem cells for cardiac regeneration; and (2) acellular therapy: extracellular vesicles/exosomes derived from those stem cells.

We reprogram hiPSCs into functional cardiomyocytes (hiPSC‑CMs) and seed them on nanofiber scaffolds to engineer cardiac tissue and establish an in situ model for “clinical trials in a dish.”

Our short‑term goal is to identify and establish novel biomaterials for tissue engineering that enhance stem‑cell survival and engraftment after transplantation into ischemic myocardium, overcoming a major barrier to effective cardiac repair. Our long‑term aim is the translation of stem‑cell therapy for myocardial repair into preclinical large‑animal MI models and ultimately into patients with advanced heart failure. We are also working to identify novel cardiac biomarkers in plasma‑derived exosomes isolated from MI patients.

Follow along at Twitter.com/TheKhanLab.