Small RNAs to mend damaged hearts

Venue: Edificio Povo 2, via Sommarive nr. 9, Povo (Tn) - Room B101
 At 3:00 p.m.

• Mauro Giacca -  International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB)

There is an impelling need to develop novel therapeutics for myocardial infarction and heart failure. Towards this goal, we wish to identify effective growth factors and small RNAs, to be used as innovative drugs,  by functional screenings. On the one hand, we generated an AAV library coding for the mouse secretome (1200+ viral vectors) and screened this library in vivo after myocardial infarction. On the other hand, we searched for microRNAs inducing cardiomyocyte proliferation ex vivo by genome-wide HTS screenings. These combined approaches led to the identification of a few factors protecting the heart from failure by inducing autophagy and of several microRNAs that stimulate cardiac regeneration in vivo.