Sarcomere is a fundamental and highly organized component of cardiac muscle cells and it is assembled precisely by hundreds of proteins. Mutations in genes encoding sarcomere proteins result in cardiomyopathies, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), including embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), are capable of differentiating into different cell types such as cardiomyocytes. My research group has been using hPSCs as a model to study cardiac development and diseases. Our major achievements and contributions to the field include establishing a platform to study human cardiac development and disease modeling, identifying a master cardiac regulator, and uncover a model for human sarcomere assembly. These results not only have provided important insights into sarcomere assembly, but have also provided pathways for potential cardiomyopathy therapies. Our research has been published in leading journals in the fields of cardiovascular, stem cell and cell biology research, including Nature Communications (2019), Cardiovascular Research (2020), Circulation Research (2022), Cell Reports (2023), and Stem Cell Reports (2023).
