Current Members

Principal Investigator

Nenad  Bursac

Nenad Bursac

Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Embryonic and adult stem cell therapies for heart and muscle disease; cardiac and skeletal muscle tissue engineering; cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias; genetic modifications of stem and somatic cells; micropatterning of proteins and hydrogels.

Research Scientists

Alastair  Khodabukus

Alastair Khodabukus

I work on developing more physiologically relevant tissue engineered skeletal muscle to study both healthy and diseased muscle physiology in human and rat cells.

Yongwu  Li

Yongwu Li

I will provide Rodent surgery support for cardiac muscle and skeleton muscle tissue engineering studies.

Laboratory Staff

Abhishek  Bhattacharjee

Abhishek Bhattacharjee

I am interested in the gene and cell therapy space. My current work focuses on optimizing BacNav based gene-therapies for increased efficacy.

Post-Doctoral Associates

Ethan  Lotz

Ethan Lotz

I am interested in developing functional neuromuscular junctions in vitro, the roles immune and glial cells play in the innervation of skeletal muscle, and regenerative strategies for the reinnervation of skeletal muscle following volumetric muscle loss in vivo.

Nicholas   Strash

Nicholas Strash

I am currently interested in studying the role of polyploidy in the context of proliferation and maturation of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

Tianyu  Wu

Tianyu Wu

My research focuses on developing prokaryotic voltage-gated sodium channels (BacNav) based gene therapies for cardiac arrhythmias.

Graduate Students

Torie  Broer

Torie Broer

I am  studying how the presence of immune cells affects the development and function of engineered skeletal muscle tissue.

Sophia  DeLuca

Sophia DeLuca

I am working on cardiomyocyte proliferation in the context of regeneration.

Amber  Detwiler

Amber Detwiler

I am studying the role of macrophages in dysferlinopathy for their implementation in a tissue engineered skeletal muscle model.

Abbi  Helfer

Abbi Helfer

I work on human cardiac tissue engineering from pluripotent stem cells, and gene editing.

Xixian  Jiang

Xixian Jiang

I am interested in studying the signaling pathways regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation and maturation.

Marisa  Patsy

Marisa Patsy

I am interested in the relationship between neurons and cardiomyocytes in the context of cardiac innervation, regeneration, and disease.

Dylan  Silkstone

Dylan Silkstone

I am interested in the development of tissue engineered skeletal muscle for disease modeling.

Yiu Yan  Siu

Yiu Yan Siu

I am interested in sodium channel trafficking and developing gene therapy for arrhythmia.

Undergraduate Students

Sarah  Broders

Sarah Broders

I am interested in studying cardiomyocyte proliferation.

Stewart  Hammond

Stewart Hammond

I am assisting in the production of optimized pre-vascularization and function in engineered skeletal muscle.

James  Koconis

James Koconis

I am interested in developing prokaryotic sodium channel-based gene therapies for cardiac arrhythmias.

Amber  Miranda

Amber Miranda

I am studying regenerative cardiomyocyte proliferation and working on developing an in vivo heart injury model.

Ashley  Myers

Ashley Myers

I am currently studying methods to induce cardiomyocyte proliferation.

Libby  Tejeda

Libby Tejeda

I am researching the mechanism behind cardiomyocyte proliferation for regenerative therapy application.

Nick  Tsintolas

Nick Tsintolas

I am interested in the development and function of engineering skeletal muscle tissues.