Reprogramming Stars #12:At the Heart of In Vivo Reprogramming—An Interview with Dr. Li Qian

Reprogramming Star: Dr. Li Qian is a Professor at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Qian’s laboratory is interested in developing innovative approaches to regenerate or repair an injured heart. Their goal is to understand the molecular basis of cardiomyocyte specification and maturation and apply this knowledge to improve efficiency and clinical applicability of cellular reprogramming in heart disease. To achieve these goals, they utilize in vivo modeling of cardiac disease in the mouse, including myocardial infarction, cardiac hypertrophy, chronic heart failure, and congenital heart disease. In addition, they take advantage of traditional mouse genetics, cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, reprogramming technologies, and the latest single-cell genomics approaches in combination with mathematical modeling to investigate the fundamental events underlying the progression of various cardiovascular diseases as well as to discover the basic mechanisms of cell reprogramming.