Joseph Yu, a BME PhD candidate in the lab of Natalia Trayanova, a core faculty member of the ICM as well as the director of ADVANCE, has been awarded a National Research Service Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for his proposal, A Biophysical Modeling Approach for Understanding Arrhythmia Mechanisms Arising from Remuscularization of the Infarcted Ventricles. Joseph’s proposed research project seeks to build and leverage a broad biophysical simulation framework to explore and understand arrhythmia mechanisms and to use a principled approach for evaluating the arrhythmia consequences of targeted direct remuscularization in a personalized manner.

“Persistent muscle deficiency following myocardial infarction (MI), attributable to the fact that the adult human heart is one of the least regenerative organs, contributes to heart failure (HF) progression and its growing prevalence worldwide. To-date, cardiology practice has been limited to managing HF progression and palliative. Direct remuscularization, or the transplantation of cardiomyocytes, seeks to address post-MI muscle deficiency by replacing lost or damaged heart muscle. However, graft-induced ventricular tachycardias (VTs)–a potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia–remain a critical concern. [My] research aims to uncover the mechanisms that give rise to these VTs using biophysical computational models with the goal of making remuscularization therapy a viable clinical treatment for HF and its progression!” -Joseph Yu

The fellowship will fund the completion of Joseph’s thesis research.

Congratulations, Joseph!