During my research endeavors, I have studied novel mechanisms and therapies for cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. My research in the recent years had major impact on two approaches for endogenous heart repair: direct cardiac reprogramming and inducing cardiomyocyte proliferation. Both approaches were highly successful. Direct reprogramming approach was the nucleus for an emerging start-up (Tenaya Therapeutics) where I was the first scientist recruited to the company to lead the efforts of direct cardiac reprogramming. Where I enjoyed the unique industry experience in building a start up from scratch. Due to the quick success in Tenaya, which just raised ~$100 million to start clinical trials, the research and development section ended very soon and now the major focus on scaling up viral manufacturing and filing IND which is away from my interest. Therefore, I have decided to go back to academia to initiate new discovery programs for heart failure therapy mainly focusing on understanding the regulation of cardiomyocyte proliferation. Most recently, my laboratory established a novel system for long term culture of human and pig heart slices and efficiently demonstrating the efficacy of direct cardiac reprogramming in such pre-clinical models (Ou et al., Circulation Research, 2019).
