2024 Finalist: Dr. Phong Nguyen
Phong Nguyen completed a Bachelor in Biomedical Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His honours year was spent in Professor Rodney Dilley’s lab where he developed methods to improve engineered cardiac tissue. He then joined Professor Peter Curie’s lab at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University for his PhD. During this time, Phong used the zebrafish to examine how muscle stem cells developed and contributed to growth and regeneration. For his postdoc, he moved to The Netherlands and joined Professor Jeroen Bakkers’ lab at the Hubrecht Institute to study how the adult zebrafish heart regenerates. In June, Phong moved to Paris to start his own group at the Institut Curie. He will continue to look into the regenerative capacity in the zebrafish heart.
Synopsis of the research:
The zebrafish can robustly regenerate its heart following injury. This is driven by the surviving endogenous cardiomyocytes being able to dedifferentiate, re-activate proliferation and generate new cardiomyocytes. Successful methods to induce proliferation have been intensively studied. However, the control of proliferation as well as how de novo cardiomyocytes redifferentiate and mature in order to integrate with the surrounding myocardium remains unclear. My research examined calcium handling dynamics and found a gene called Lrrc10, a regulator of calcium acted as a negative regulator of proliferation and induced maturation. Lrrc10’s dual function was also conserved in human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and mouse cardiomyocytes. Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes are commonly used for cell-based therapies, disease modelling and drug screens. However, their embryonic-like characteristics limits their use to fully recapitulate the adult human context. My research provides insights into the mechanisms required to induce cells to a more mature state and can have the potential to produce cell models that better represent adult cardiomyocytes.