Visualization and Simulation of Activation in Transgenic Mouse Hearts

Dr. Alonso Moreno

Dr. Alonso Moreno's research has all the ingredients of modern physiological science and his needs will advance the Center in exciting new directions that are well within our reach. With his research, Dr. Moreno seeks to understand the role and underlying mechanisms of gap junctions in the heart through a combination of molecular biology, cell culture, confocal microscopy, high resolution electrophysiological mapping, bioelectric signal processing, and visualization. His specific interest in this collaboration is to identify the role of gap junctions in the border zone of scars that arise following myocardial infarction, the site thought to be responsible for cardiac arrhythmias. He and his colleagues will use transgenically altered mice as the source for neonatal myocytes to create two-dimensional, cultured cell networks in which expression of the genes responsible for connexin (a building block of gap junctions) is altered.

Dr. Moreno has focused his research in the physiological regulation of intercellular communication through gap junction channels. He is currently at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology, Indiana University School of Medicine and will move to the CVRTI during the spring of 2005. His research and his team of collaborators are internationally recognized. With Dr. Moreno's move to the CVRTI, the close proximity will enhance the productivity of the collaboration and ensure rapid progress.