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Philippe Menasche.

Professor Volker G094-P
(205) 934-8420

Research and Teaching Interests: Stem-cell-derived extracellular vesicles for the treatment of heart failure

Office Hours: By appointment

Dr. Philippe Menasché is currently a professor in the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering. He also serves as clinical cardiac surgeon at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Professor of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Paris Descartes, and leader of an INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) team devoted to cell therapy of cardiovascular diseases. The group has a long-standing interest in stem cells for the treatment of heart failure and has therefore developed small and large animal (including nonhuman primate) models of myocardial infarction and dilated cardiomyopathy.

While the initial research has focused, both experimentally and clinically, on the transplantation of skeletal myoblasts, it has then moved towards the combination of cardiac progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells (ESC) with a tissue engineering-based construct. The first-in-man trial testing this cell-loaded patch and primarily focused on feasibility and safety has now been successfully completed. In parallel, mechanistic studies have unravelled the predominant role of paracrine signalling and its mediation by cell-secreted extracellular vesicles. Consequently, the group is now shifting its research towards a-cellular cell therapy based on the exclusive use of these extracellular vesicles (isolated from pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac progenitor cells) with the objective of further streamlining the clinical translatability of this myocardial repair strategy.

  • Research Interests

    My research interests are focused on the use of stem-cell-derived extracellular vesicles (particularly exosomes) for the treatment of heart failure and include large-scale GMP-compliant production of these vesicles, their purification, characterization, mechanism of action at the molecular level, targeted delivery and in vivo preclinical evaluations in ischemic and nonischemic cardiomyopathy models.

  • Academic Distinctions and Professional Societies
    • Society of Thoracic Surgeons
    • American Association for Thoracic Surgery
    • French National Academy of Surgery (Académie Nationale de Chirurgie)
    • Advisory Board of the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery
    • Editorial Board of the Journal of Cardiac Surgery
    • Editorial Board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology
    • Editorial Board of the Archives of Cardiovascular Disease