Life Sciences Commons^™

Designer Biologics Composed Of Hepatocyte Growth Factor, Fibroblast Growth Factor 2 And Immunoglobulin G For Treatment Of Acute Myocardial Infarction, Benjamin Liebman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT Coronary artery disease leading to myocardial infarction (a.k.a. MI, heart attack) is one of the leading causes of death globally. Each year an estimated 605,000 Americans suffer a heart attack, which equates to one MI every 40 seconds. As such, MI represents one of the largest health burdens to society. The current standard of care is revascularization therapy achieved by fibrinolytics and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI); both of which re-open occluded proximal arteries to restore blood flow to the affected areas. Despite revascularization therapy, 30-50% of patients exhibit a form of reperfusion injury termed “no/low-reflow” in which the blood …

Epicardial Cell Engraftment And Signaling Promote Cardiac Repair After Myocardial Infarction, Krithika Rao

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The epicardium is a single layer of epithelial (mesothelial) cells that covers the entire heart surface, but whose function in adult mammals is poorly understood. Defining the role of epicardial cells during homeostasis, growth and injury has potential to provide new treatment strategies for human diseases that result in heart failure, due to extensive loss of viable cardiac tissue. We hypothesized that epicardial cells contribute to repair as transplantable progenitor cells for cellular regeneration and as a source of secreted growth factors for cell protection after myocardial infarction.

Adult epicardial cells were prospectively isolated as uncommitted epithelial cells using epithelial-specific …