Professor Katrin Streckfuss-Bömeke

Talk title: Human Stem Cell Models for Cardiac Disease Analysis

Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiac models enable precise investigation of diverse cardiac diseases through patient-specific cardiomyocytes, co-cultures, and 3D engineered heart tissues. Our work focuses on: (1) Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) with heightened β-adrenergic sensitivity, cAMP/PDE dysregulation, mitochondrial Ca²⁺ overload, and atrial arrhythmogenesis; (2) cardiomyopathies such as dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC), RBM20/LMNA/FLNC-related disorders, anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity, and arrhythmia-induced cardiomyopathy; and (4) mitochondrial diseases (TAZ Barth syndrome). These platforms reveal disease-specific subcellular defects, neuro-cardiac crosstalk, and therapeutic targets like β-blockers, PDE4 activators, and Nav1.8 inhibitors, bridging pathophysiology to precision medicine.

Biography:

Katrin Streckfuss-Bömeke studied Biology at the University of Göttingen, where she completed her doctorate in Microbiology and Genetics in 2006. For her postdoctoral period, she moved to the Department of Cardiology and Pneumology at the University Medical Centre Göttingen and started her work with mouse and human stem cells. She has headed the Translational Stem Cell Research working group since 2013 and habilitated in Molecular Medicine at the Department of Cardiology and Pneumology in Göttingen in 2018. In 2021, she was appointed Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Würzburg. She has a longstanding experience in human stem cell research analyzing signaling pathways in cardiac cells that are relevant for cardiac pathophysiological processes of cardiovascular diseases (Takotsubo Syndrome, dilated cardiomyopathy, non-compaction cardiomyopathy, anthracycline-induced cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia-induced cardiomyopathy). In general, her focus is on cellular and organ interfaces of cardiovascular medicine. From 2023 to 2025, she has been the Chair of the Commission for Experimental Cardiology (KEK) of the German Society of Cardiology (DGK), and since 2022, she has been a member of various committees of the DGK and Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and a nucleus member of the ESC working group "Cellular Biology of the Heart".

Association

Streckfuß-Bömeke, Katrin, Prof. Dr. - Translational stem cell research - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Host

Professor Ajay Shah