Cardiac Regeneration & Drug Discovery

As a Fulbright U.S. Student Scholar at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Trieste, Italy, I worked in the Giacca Lab on cardiac regeneration. This project involved:

• Utilizing a high-throughput, image-based drug screening platform with FDA-approved compound libraries
• Identifying agents that enhance cardiomyocyte proliferation and regeneration
• Integrating cell culture, histology, and molecular biology to validate candidate compounds
• Uncovering mechanisms driving cardiac repair after injury

This work contributed to the growing effort to find pharmacological strategies for regenerating the adult mammalian heart after myocardial infarction.