Human heart tissue for understanding heart disease

This project aims to repair and reconstruct tissues for kids with heart defects. More than 2000 children are born with major heart defects in Australia each year. While many can be saved via early and invasive surgical intervention, in many instances life span is limited and quality of life restricted. It is possible to generate human heart muscle from pluripotent stem cells. This provides the possibility of engineering contractile human tissue that may be able to improve the long term outcome for such children. There is a robust heart stem cell network nationally working right across the space of modelling heart disease, improving heart repair and potentially recreating heart tissue to treat kids with congenital heart disease. This group is well aligned with HeartKids and has strong links with the cardiac surgeons and cardiologists around Australia.

For more information on this project contact Linda Cox on linda.cox@mcri.edu.au or +61 418 583 986.

Investigators from University of Melbourne

  • LEAD: A/Professor Enzo Porrello (Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)
  • Dr David Elliott (Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)
  • Dr Christian Brizard (Royal Children's Hospital, Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)
  • Dr Yves D'Udekem (Royal Children's Hospital, Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)
  • Dr Igor Konstantinov (Royal Children's Hospital, Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)
  • Dr Michael Cheung (Royal Children's Hospital, Murdoch Children's Children Institute and University of Melbourne)

Investigators from other institutes