From teeth, skin, blood to heart : induced pluripotent stem cells as an in vitro model for cardiac disease

Abstract

Since the first reports of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC), the field of pluripotent stem cell (PSC) research has grown in leap and bounds, particularly in the area of (cardiac) disease modeling. This is in part because it is fairly easy to produce cardiomyocytes from hPSC and also there are now more assays available which can determine phenotypic behavior. This thesis describes and discusses improvements to reprogramming technology as well as its use in cardiac development and disease modeling