Aging one cell at a time: Heterogeneous aging behind the electrical dysfunction of the heart's pacemaker
Dr. Moreno’s team is interested in understanding how aging alters the generation of electrical signals in the body. For this, Dr. Moreno studies one of the most electrical active tissues in the body, the cardiac pacemaker. On average, our heart beats 100,000 times. Each heartbeat is initiated in the cardiac pacemaker, a few thousands of pacemaker cells that drive the contraction of the more than 2 billion cardiomyocytes of the heart. Aging leads to a decrease in pacemaker activity, and in pathological cases this can lead to pacemaker dysfunction, which accounts for 60% of the implantations of artificial pacemakers worldwide. Dr. Moreno is combining electrophysiology, super-resolution imaging, and single-cell transcriptomics to study the age-associated changes in the molecules that sustain the electrical function of the pacemaker. Her results will help to understand the age-driven mechanisms behind pacemaker dysfunction and will open new avenues for the prevention of chronic organ failure in older adults.
