Early Career Investigator (ECI) Travel Bursaries for Laboratory Visits at the 2019 ISHR World Congress

In association with 2019 International Society for Heart Research (ISHR) World Congress, Deli Zhang received an ECI travel bursary grant to visit the lab of Prof Shi-Qiang Wang  from Peking University. Prof. Wang is an expert and pioneer in the field of calcium imaging, especially measuring calcium sparks (Wang et al, Nature, 2001; Wang et al, PNAs, 2004). Disruption of SR-mitochondrial contact (focus of Deli’s current project) can result in cytoplasmic calcium overload leading to increasing of calcium sparks, which can induce propagating calcium waves and arrhythmias. Using line-scanning technique with a high-speed confocal microscope embedded in Prof. Wang’s lab, they can image calcium sparks in detail. And they also have built a set of software tools for analyzing and quantifying the imaging data. This visit will not only enable her to learn this new technique, but also will initiate new inter-lab collaboration.