Dr Lay Ping Ong

In a heart attack, a significant proportion of the heart muscle dies. The adult mammalian heart is the least replicative organ in the body. It cannot generate new heart muscle to restore its pumping action. 

Heart failure ensues which carries 1 in 2 chances of death within 5 years of diagnosis. A heart transplant is the only definitive cure for chronic heart failure but is a limited resource. Thus, chronic heart failure remains a clinically unmet need. 

Stem cells are cells that can turn into any cell type in the body, and so adding new heart muscle using a stem cell-based approach holds great promise to reinstate the pumping ability of the heart. During my PhD (supervised by Prof Sanjay Sinha in collaboration with Prof Charles E Murry), I discovered that cardiomyocyte-based cellular therapy has the potential to biologically repower the chronically failing heart. 

Ongoing research is focused on developing novel therapies (stem cell-based and/or gene therapy) to regenerate the chronically failing heart. I use a combinatorial approach of data-driven target discovery with downstream validation in complex human heart assays.  To translate this work into clinics, I collaborate with academics, clinicians, and industry scientists.