Mechanical and Optical Control of Heart Rhythm A seminar with Dr Eilidh MacDonald

Dr Eilidh MacDonald will present an in-person seminar on Mechanical and Optical Control of Heart Rhythm in this guest seminar organised by the School of Medicine Cellular Medicine Division.

Dr Eilidh MacDonald is a Research Fellow in the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Health at the University of Glasgow. Eilidh comes from Canada, which is also where she completed her PhD at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia under the supervision of Prof Alex Quinn. Her PhD work investigated intrinsic regulation of the heart's natural pacemaker and the effects of mechano-electric interactions on heart rhythm. During this time, she also spent a year at the Institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine in Freiburg, Germany working under the supervision of Prof Peter Kohl on optical steering of heart rhythm with optogenetic tools. In January 2021, Eilidh moved to Glasgow to work as a postdoc with Prof Chris Loughrey investigating the role of Runx1 in adverse cardiac remodelling, using mouse models of HFpEF and myocardial infarction. Since 2023, she's been working to combine her interests into an independent research program that investigates arrhythmia mechanisms and treatments in the context of heart failure and sinoatrial node dysfunction.

The heart's intrinsic pacemaker, the sinoatrial node (SAN), is highly regulated, allowing for adaptation of heart rate (HR) to physiological demand. Our current work aims to identify how tissue mechanics relates to stretch-induced changes in SAN electrophysiology with an overall aim to bridge classical observations of SAN mechano-sensitivity with modern tools to interrogate the mechanisms and determinants of mechanical HR control to develop new therapeutics to target heart failure and sinoatrial node dysfunction.