Dr Laure Gambardella

I have joined Dr Sanjay Sinha's team in 2014 to improve our understanding of human epicardial development. My project aims to characterise the heterogeneity of the epicardial cells in humans and to decode their commitment to different cardiovascular compartments. 

The epicardium has been shown in animal models to produce coronary vascular smooth muscle cells and cardiac fibroblasts but it is unclear whether epicardium is also able to supply coronary endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes. Our team has the capability to generate human epicardium in vitro from ES and IPS cells, and I propose to compare this engineered epicardium to embryonic and adult epicardium harvested from human samples.

I strive to validate this engineered epicardium as a model of development, a source of cells for cell therapy and a platform for drug discovery/testing in the context of cardiac regenerative medicine. Moreover, my project is expected to advance our understanding of the origin and development of the coronary vessels in humans, which would help to apprehend the coronary vascular diseases.