Emilia Entcheva Explained

Emilia Entcheva
Workplaces:George Washington University
Stony Brook University
Johns Hopkins University
Alma Mater:University of Memphis
Technical University, Sofia
Thesis Title:Cardiac tissue structure–electric field interactions in polarizing the heart: 3D computer models and applications
Thesis Url:https://worldcat.org/en/title/55769390

Emilia Entcheva is a Bulgarian–American engineer who is a professor of biomedical engineering at George Washington University. She serves as Director of the Cardiac Optogenetics and Optical Imaging Laboratory. She is a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Early life and education

Entcheva studied electrical engineering at the Technical University, Sofia. She moved to the United States for graduate studies, joining the University of Memphis for a doctorate in biomedical engineering. Specifically, her work looked to understand how heart's fiber structure influences responses to external electric fields through bidomain finite element modeling.[1] She conducted her postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins University developing fast optical mapping techniques for imaging excitation waves, that led to some of the first documentations of cardiac arrhythmias in a dish and their termination by electric fields.[2]

Research and career

In the early 2000s, Entcheva started her research group at Stony Brook University.[3] She worked on cardiac cell and tissue engineering, optical mapping of arrhythmias, biomaterials, systems biology and computational strategies for describing complex biological processes.[4] In 2007, she started working on optogenetics: a strategy to control biological processes using light.[5] [6] She was among the first scientists to extend the applications of optogenetics to the heart for scalable drug testing platforms and for control of cardiac waves.[7] [8] [9]

Entcheva moved to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at George Washington University in 2016. Her group continues to leverage cardiac optogenetics, optical mapping, human stem cell technology and gene modulation techniques to develop high-throughput testing platforms for drug screening and personalized medicine. These all-optical electrophysiology methods are scalable contactless means for comprehensive assessment of responses to drugs in heart cells and neurons; they are particularly useful in pre-clinical cardiotoxicity testing using human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs).[10] [11]

In 2016, Entcheva was inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.[12]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Cardiac tissue structure-electric field interactions in polarizing the heart : 3d computer models and applications WorldCat.org . January 30, 2023 . www.worldcat.org . en.
  2. Entcheva . Emilia . 2000 . Contact fluorescence imaging of reentry in monolayers of cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes . Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology . en . 11 . 6 . 665–76 . 10.1111/j.1540-8167.2000.tb00029.x . 10868740. 23937168 . free .
  3. Web site: Entcheva Lab Cardiac Optogenetics & Optical Imaging Research . January 30, 2023 . Emilia Entcheva Cardiac Optogenetics & Optical Imaging Lab GW University . en-US.
  4. Web site: EHA: SUNY at Stony Brook . January 30, 2023 . www3.cs.stonybrook.edu.
  5. Emiliani . Valentina . 2022 . Optogenetics for light control of biological systems . Nature Reviews Methods Primers . en . 2 . 55 . 10.1038/s43586-022-00136-4. 257209329 .
  6. Web site: Dunaief . Daniel . SB's Entcheva explores a bright idea for arrhythmias TBR News Media . November 24, 2015 . January 30, 2023 . en-US.
  7. Jia . Zhiheng . 2011 . Stimulating cardiac muscle by light: cardiac optogenetics by cell delivery . Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology . en . 4 . 5 . 753–60 . 10.1161/CIRCEP.111.964247. 21828312 . 3209525 .
  8. Burton . Rebecca . 2015 . Optical control of excitation waves in cardiac tissue . Nature Photonics . en . 9 . 1 . 813–816 . 10.1038/nphoton.2015.196. 27057206 . 4821438 . 2015NaPho...9..813B .
  9. Entcheva . Emilia . Kay . Matthew W. . May 2021 . Cardiac optogenetics: a decade of enlightenment . Nature Reviews Cardiology . en . 18 . 5 . 349–367 . 10.1038/s41569-020-00478-0 . 1759-5002 . 8127952 . 33340010.
  10. Klimas . Aleksandra . 2016 . OptoDyCE as an automated system for high-throughput all-optical dynamic cardiac electrophysiology . Nature Communications . en . 7 . 11542 . 10.1038/ncomms11542 . 27161419. 4866323 . 2016NatCo...711542K .
  11. Heinson . Yuli . 2023 . Portable low-cost macroscopic mapping system for all-optical cardiac electrophysiology . Journal of Biomedical Optics . en . 28 . 1 . 016001 . 10.1117/1.JBO.28.1.016001 . 36636698. 9830584 . 2023JBO....28a6001H .
  12. Web site: Emilia Entcheva, Ph.D. COF-1948 – AIMBE . January 30, 2023 . en.