Optical determination of stretch induced transmembrane ion fluxes in cardiac myofibroblasts

My internship will be done in the department of physiology of the Bern University. I will be working under the supervision of the professor Stephan Rohr. He has been working on the implication of myofibroblast in cardiac arrhythmias for the past 20 years. He also developed various system to evaluate the impact of strain event on myofibroblast polarization.

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My work will be focused on the effect of strain events on cardiac myofibroblast. It has been observed that stretching can modify myofibroblast polarization. Myofibroblast have been shown to exert direct arrhythmogenic effects on cardiomyocyte. They can induce slow conduction in the myocardium during fibrotic remodeling and it may contribute to the precipitation of strain-related arrhythmias. The goal of my internship is to investigate the implication of various mechano-sensitive channels in this phenomenon. Stretch induced transmembrane ion fluxes will be studied by using stretching device and optical recordings. Acquiring more knowledge about ion channels activated by strain event in cardiac tissue can bring a better understanding of the pro-arhythmic effect of myofibroblast induced by mechanical stress.