Labs

Posnack Laboratory

About the Lab

The laboratory of Nikki Posnack, Ph.D., investigates the impact of environmental and clinical perturbations that can impact cardiovascular function. Recently, our team has focused on biocompatibility concerns surrounding inadvertent plastic chemical exposure from medical devices – including blood storage bags and cardiopulmonary bypass/ECMO circuits. Other projects in the lab are focused on red blood cell storage lesion and its role in cardiac complications and developing a 3D tissue model (from live human cardiac tissue) to study age-dependent effects of pharmacotherapies. Accordingly, my team has extensive expertise using a multitude of cardiovascular models, including intact heart and cellular preparations for electrophysiology, dual optical mapping of calcium/voltage, and contractility measurements. The latter also includes the use of large animal models for optocardiography studies, which are performed by only a handful of research groups.

Read More
  • Lab Focus Areas

    Pediatric cardiac physiology

    Cardiac electrophysiology

    Optical mapping

    Cardiotoxicity and biocompatibility

  • Partnerships

    George Washington University, School of Medicine and Health Sciences

    George Washington University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

  • Contact

    Nikki Posnack, Ph.D. Principal Investigator, Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation 202-476-2475

Featured Publications

SEE ALL ON PUBMED SEE ALL ON BIORXIV