"Redefining the Landscape of Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy: From Mechanism to New Therapeutic Interventions"

Speaker:

Farah Sheikh, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
University of California San Diego

About Farah Sheikh:

Dr. Sheikh holds a bachelor's degree in biology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. She earned her doctoral degree in physiology from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and completed postdoctoral fellowship training in molecular cardiology at the University of California San Diego.

Dr. Sheikh's research focuses on understanding the pathways driving biomechanical stress responses in cardiac muscle as they are major triggers for human genetic-based cardiac diseases. More recently, her investigations have centralized on complexes at the cardiac muscle cell-cell junction as genetic mutations/deficiencies in components associated with this complex drive, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), that results in sudden death.

Through collaborations with prominent investigators in the bioengineering/nanoengineering departments, her lab has exploited in vitro model systems that have uncovered early mechanisms and unconventional roles for cell-cell junction proteins in cardiac muscle, conduction, maturity and human cardiac disease. In this manner, she is developing a comprehensive understanding of the complex role for the cell-cell junction network and its requirement for optimal cardiac function both in vitro and in vivo.