Malcolm Maden
University of Florida, FL·Biology
Adult human hearts cannot repair themselves. After a heart attack, dead muscle is replaced by scar tissue, and the heart's pumping strength never fully returns.
- Fields
Biology
Physiology
Genetics
- Topics
spiny mouse
Acomys cahirinus
regeneration
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Determine whether the spiny mouse heart truly regenerates after a heart attack through cardiomyocyte division, using tissue staining for fibrosis, cell division and cell death, compared with lab mice.
- Test whether the spiny mouse forms a scar that later clears or never forms a scar at all, using a cryoinjury model in which part of the heart is damaged by freezing.
- Compare gene activity in injured spiny mouse and lab mouse hearts using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), focusing on epicardial and cardiomyocyte signaling, and test these pathways with drug inhibitors.
- Identify microRNAs (small RNAs that tune gene activity) and new cellular gene networks in damaged spiny mouse hearts, using miRNA profiling and single-cell RNA sequencing.
More about the research
About 800,000 Americans have a heart attack each year. The spiny mouse (Acomys) is an unusual exception. It regrows skin, skeletal muscle and ear tissue instead of scarring. The team has shown that after an induced heart attack, the spiny mouse heart recovers much of its pumping force within four weeks and forms very little fibrotic tissue (scar-like connective tissue). In contrast, lab mouse hearts suffer spreading damage and fibrosis.
Why it matters
Heart attacks leave permanent scar tissue and weakened hearts in hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Learning how the spiny mouse heart recovers with little scarring could reveal genes, pathways and microRNAs that might one day be targeted to improve heart repair in people. This could eventually inform new approaches to restoring heart function after a heart attack.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Guo Huang
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Physiology
Determine how Bcl6, a gene-regulating protein switched on after birth, controls heart muscle cell division during heart growth and repair after injury, using heart-specific Bcl6 deletion in mice.
Shah Ali
Columbia University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Build a genetic mouse model in which the biotin-tagging enzyme TurboID sits in the endoplasmic reticulum of cardiac fibroblasts, so the proteins these scar-forming cells secrete can be labeled in living animals.
Jidong Fu
Ohio State University, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Characterize how Masir, a membrane-associated long noncoding RNA, protects heart muscle cells from ischemic injury by enhancing membrane repair, and assess its safety in mouse models.
The school
University of Florida: 65 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 795 research doctorates a year.
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