Prof. Dr. Alessandra Moretti
Academic Career and Research Areas
Alessandra Moretti (b. 1967) conducts research in the fields of stem cell biology and cardiac development. Her research focuses are 1) cardiovascular progenitors and their specification into the various heart cell lineages 2) cellular plasticity and 3) human induced pluripotent stem cells as model systems for studying cardiovascular disease and regeneration.
Moretti studied chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences in Padua and obtained her doctorate at the same university in 1997. After working for four years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego and at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, she became head of the molecular cardiology research group at TUM's university hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar in 2006. Since 2015 she has been associate professor of regenerative medicine in cardiovascular disease at TUM.
Awards
- ERC Advanced Grant (2018)
- Innovation prize of the German Medical Faculties (2013)
- Göttingen Academy of Sciences Award for Biology (2012)
- Principal investigator of the German Center of Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) (since 2011)
- Astra Zeneca Award in Cardiovascular Sciences (2006)
Key Publications
Moretti A, Fonteyne L, Giesert F, Hoppmann P, Meier AB, Bozoglu T, Baehr A, Schneider CM, Sinnecker D, Klett K, Fröhlich T, Rahman FA, Haufe T, Sun S, Jurisch V, Kessler B, Hinkel R, Dirschinger R, Martens E, Jilek C, Graf A, Krebs S, Santamaria G, Kurome M, Zakhartchenko V, Campbell B, Voelse K, Wolf A, Ziegler T, Reichert S, Lee S, Flenkenthaler F, Dorn T, Jeremias I, Blum H, Dendorfer A, Schnieke A, Krause S, Walter MC, Klymiuk N, Laugwitz KL, Wolf E, Wurst W, Kupatt C: “Somatic gene editing ameliorates skeletal and cardiac muscle failure in pig and human models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy”. Nature Medicine. 2020: 26 (2): 207-214.
AbstractDorn T, Kornherr J, Parrotta EI, Zawada D, Ayetey H, Santamaria G, Iop L, Mastantuono E, Sinnecker D, Goedel A, Dirschinger RJ, My I, Laue S, Bozoglu T, Baarlink C, Ziegler T, Graf E, Hinkel R, Cuda G, Kääb S, Grace AA, Grosse R, Kupatt C, Meitinger T, Smith AG, Laugwitz KL, Moretti A: “Interplay of cell-cell contacts and RhoA/MRTF-A signaling regulates cardiomyocyte identity”. EMBO Journal. 2018; doi: 10.15252/embj.201798133.
AbstractMoretti A, Bellin M, Welling A, Jung CB, Lam JT, Bott-Flügel L, Dorn T, Gödel A, Höhnke C, Hofmann F, Seyfarth M, Sinnecker D, Schömig A, Laugwitz KL: „Patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell models for long-QT syndrome”. N Engl J Med. 2010; 363: 1397-1409.
AbstractMoretti A, Caron L, Nakano A, Lam J, Chen Y, Qyang Y, Sasaki M, Yunfu S, Evans S, Laugwitz KL, Chien KR: “Multipotent embryonic Isl1+ progenitor cells lead to cardiac, smooth muscle, and endothelial cell diversification”. Cell. 2006; 127: 1151-1165.
AbstractLaugwitz KL, Moretti A, Lam J, Gruber P, Chen Y, Woodard S, Lin LZ, Cai CL, Lu M, Reth M, Platoshyn O, Yuan J, Evans S, Chien KR: "Postnatal Isl1+ cardioblasts enter fully differentiated cardiomyocyte lineages". Nature. 2005; 433: 647-653.
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