Cell-to-cell variability of cardiac electrophysiology and its influence on ventricular repolarisation

As a result of heart disease, the heart is less efficient at pumping blood and may have
a lethal abnormal electrical rhythm, called an arrhythmia. Heart disease causes alterations in the electrical activity of the heart. The changes are many and complex, but they can result in lethal arrhythmias; Antiarrhythmic agents are often ineffective: they can suppress arrhythmias in some patients but aggravate them in others. Clinicians aim to target treatment to the patient’s symptoms, but no new antiarrhythmic drug treatments have been developed in over 20 years. Maybe we are missing a key component of how the disease can cause arrhythmias?
We will make functional measurements (calcium and voltage) and new optical methods to determine single cell protein levels (RNA-FISH) in the same cells to determine what the main causes of cell-to-cell variability are and how this changes in disease. This information would be the first step to develop life-saving anti-arrhythmic treatments in the future.