Emilia Entcheva, PhD

Professor Emilia Entcheva directs the Cardiac Optogenetics and Optical Imaging Laboratory. Her research group combines biophotonics tools with human stem-cell-derived cardiomyocyte technology and gene editing approaches to aid the advancement of personalized medicine. The lab played a key role in bringing optogenetics to the cardiac field and validating its use experimentally and computationally. The lab combines cell and tissue engineering, genetic engineering, all-optical cardiac electrophysiology, instrumentation and control, machine learning and transcriptomics analysis to help improve the maturity of engineered human heart tissues and their use in high-throughput drug-screening applications. Professor Entcheva is an AIMBE Fellow and her work is supported by the NSF, NIH, AHA, HFSP and others.