Huei-Sheng Vincent Chen

  • Research

    Dr. Chen studies the factors controlling development, maturation and function of various ion channels in cardiac and neurological system.

  • Biography

    Dr. Chen earned his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in 1993.

Publications

 

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Huei-Sheng Vincent Chen's Research Focus

Cardiovascular Diseases, Heart Disease, Neurodegenerative and Neuromuscular Diseases, Stroke

Dr. Chen’s laboratory focuses on the electrophysiological and metabolic maturation/ development of mouse embryonic hearts and human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. During cardiac development, various nonmyocardial cells control or guide electrical/ metabolic maturation of embryonic mouse hearts and primitive cardiomyocytes derived from human embryonic stem cell or induced pluripotent stem cell lines. The Chen laboratory has established several co-culture systems of human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes with cells derived from neural crest or endothelial progenitor cells so as to elucidate factors from non-cardiomyocytes that induce electrical maturation of primitive cardiomyocytes. The main emphasis of Chen laboratory is placed on the neuro-cardiac interactions, which affect embryonic cardiac development and contribute to arrhythmogenesis, such as atrial fibrillation in adult humans.

The Chen laboratory also has successfully established several cardiac disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) lines from human fibroblasts of patients with arrhythmogenic diseases, such as Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy/ Dysplasia, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia, and Kearns-Sayre syndrome to model human cardiac diseases in a dish. Using maturation induction techniques developed in the Chen laboratory, Chen’s team has started to unravel the electrical and metabolic derangement underlying these inherited arrhythmogenic cardiac diseases. New pathogenic pathways have been identified with these in-vitro human disease models, enabling mechanistic studies and therapeutic screens to develop safe and effective therapeutic strategies for these lethal cardiac diseases.

About Huei-Sheng Vincent Chen

Experience

Huei-Sheng Vincent Chen earned his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in 1993 and his B.M. (M.D. equivalent) at College of Medicine, National Taiwan University. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He then completed his Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology fellowship at the Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. He received postdoctoral training in Dr. Stephen Heinemann’s Laboratory at The Salk Institute and cardiac electrophysiology training with Dr. Mark Josephson and Dr. Gregory Feld. Dr. Chen was recruited to Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute as assistant professor in 2002.

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