Biotechnology at CCSF - Monruedee Chonganurakkun

Monruedee (Marie) Chonganurakkun

“I grew up in Thailand where I earned a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology. When I moved to the United States, I worked briefly for a soap company in their research and development department, but I felt unfulfilled there. I wanted work more in line with what I had studied in college. Although I had no prior experience working with stem cells, I began taking classes at CCSF in this area of research. “

Marie got an internship at Tenaya Therapeutics through the CCSF's CIRM Stem Cell program where she helped research potential drug therapies for heart disease. When she finished her internship at Tenaya, Marie was offered a job there, which she gladly accepted, pleased to be able to continue working with this company.

Marie’s interest in cell biology and stem cell technology has only grown stronger over the past year.

Monruedee_Chonganurakkun_CCSF_CIRM_Stem_Cell_Internship_iPSC-Cardiomyocytes_Tenaya.pptx

Stem Cell Internship: Tenaya Therapeutics

Project Title: Establishment of Robust Assays to Measure Autophagy in iPSC-Cardiomyocytes

Project Abstract: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a form of heart muscle weakness, characterized by the reduced cardiac output, thinning and enlargement of left ventricular chambers. Many end-stage patients with severe forms of DCM have no treatment options other than a heart transplant. Greater than 50% of DCM patients have at least one mutation in approximately 80 genes associated with genetic forms of dilated cardiomyopathy. A number of these DCM disease-associated genes code for central regulators of protein quality control, and mutations in these genes leads to protein aggregation and accumulation of misfolded proteins. Current medications prescribed to patients suffering from DCM only target the symptoms and do not address the root cause of the disease.

To improve on cellular protein quality control, we hypothesize that inducing autophagy (a central biological process that enables cells to clear out the damaged and aggregated proteins) may enable development of drugs targeting DCM. To investigate the benefits of autophagy on DCM, it is necessary to understand how autophagy is regulated in in vitro-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs). In this study, we established assay conditions to measure two known markers of autophagy (LC3-II and p62) in iPSC-CMs in the presence of published modulators of autophagy. Here, we studied published autophagy assays and describe 3 assays which show the least experimental variability to measure the effect of small molecules on autophagic flux in iPSC-cardiomyocytes.

Marie imaging myotubes stained with lysotracker at CCSF in the Stem Cell Technology Course.

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Monruedee (Marie) Chonganurakkun

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