Ongoing Projects

We address multiple stages of the pathological cascade associated with ACM:

• Integration of functional and molecular data:
  By combining cardiac functional analyses with spatial and temporal gene expression patterns, we identify causative and predictive factors driving arrhythmias and cardiac fibrosis.
• Cell-type–specific mechanisms:
  We investigate how distinct cardiac cell subtypes contribute to disease manifestation and progression, and how their interactions shape the cardiomyopathy phenotype.
• Therapeutic strategies:
  A key focus lies on evaluating compounds that restore impaired cell–cell adhesion, building on our findings that disrupted intercellular adhesive function plays a central role in ACM pathogenesis.

Methodological Expertise

To explore ACM in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo, we employ a range of methods:

• Advanced disease modeling:
  We establish novel ACM model systems, including stem cell-derived 3D heart tissue, to recapitulate disease features and enable preclinical testing of therapeutic approaches.
• Molecular and omics-based analyses:
  • Transcriptomics (spatial transcriptomics, single-cell and single-nucleus RNA sequencing)
  • Proteomics (total and phospho-proteomes)
  • Additional biomolecular analyses of disease-relevant pathways
• Structural analyses:
  • Histological techniques and fluorescence-based imaging
  • Electron microscopy for ultrastructural assessment
• Functional analyses:
  • In vivo cardiac function assessment (echocardiography, ECG)
  • Adhesion assays (low- and high-throughput) to quantify defects in cell–cell interactions