Congratulations to Dr Annika Winbo who was awarded the Young Investigator Award (Basic Science Category), awarded by the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society and presented at the Heart Rhythm Scientific Sessions in San Francisco in May 2019. The work: “Functional Co-culture of Sympathetic Neurons and Cardiomyocytes derived from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”. She also won a Poster Award for the same work at the Gordon Research Conference on Arrhythmia Mechanisms in Barga, Italy in April 2019
Annika’s work describes the growth of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived sympathetic neurons and their functional properties, as well as the first successful functional co-culture between human induced pluripotent stem cell derived sympathetic neurons and cardiomyocytes. This is an exciting new cellular model system for examining the neurocardiac interplay on a cellular level, as well as the neuronal role in cardiac arrhythmias such as long QT syndrome.