Heart Group | Group Leader Katriina Aalto-Setälä

We are a multidisciplinary research group integrating expertise in cell biology, stem cell technology, and medicine.

The primary goal of the heart group is to generate functional cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes from pluripotent stem cells and to investigate various genetic heart diseases and atherosclerosis using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology.

Our research also focuses on developing iPSC lines and optimizing differentiation methods and growth conditions for cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes. This involves examining the effects of biochemical and physical factors on cell differentiation, growth, maturation, and characteristics. Cardiac and hepatic differentiation are well-established techniques in our laboratory.

With expertise in molecular biology, molecular genetics, and clinical cardiology, along with strong collaborative networks in Finland and internationally, we have successfully developed facilities and techniques to study iPSCs and create disease models for genetic cardiac conditions.

We study cells from patients with various cardiac diseases and have developed a range of methods to detect abnormalities in cell morphology, beating patterns, and electrical properties. Additionally, we investigate the effects of different drugs on patient- and mutation-specific cardiomyocytes and conduct clinical studies to validate drug response observations from cell models in patients. The heart group also explores biomaterials optimized for cultivating cardiomyocytes.

We are also involved in designing various devices and platforms to modify cell culture conditions, as well as developing software for automated analysis of our in vitro research data. Our research group actively collaborates with specialists from diverse fields, including engineering, biomaterials, electrophysiology, cell modeling, and clinical medicine.