Thursday 27 November 2025 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre Puddicombe Way Cambridge Biomedical Campus Cambridge CB2 0AW
About
Sasha Mendjan Assistant Professorship in Synthetic Tissue Biology, Medical University of Vienna
Deciphering Human Heart Development and Disease
Abstract
The heart is the first organ to form in humans, but how molecules instruct cells to create such a fascinating structure remains unclear. The Mendjan lab aims to recapitulate human cardiac development in vitro, discover the underlying mechanisms, and understand how dysregulation of developmental pathways leads to heart disease. Our approach is to use human pluripotent stem cells to generate self-organizing chamber-like heart organoids, called "cardioids," to decipher how cardiogenesis works across biological scales — from the structural, molecular, cellular, and tissue levels to the whole organoid —and how this integration fails in human heart disorders.
Please contact: Jack Palmer, James Cranley and Kazumasa Kanemaru if you would like to arrange a meeting with Sasha Mendjan
A light lunch will be provided from 12.30 pm
It would be great to see you in person, but if you need to attend remotely please contact Sarah Gibbings to receive a Teams link.