Crisa and Moussavi-Harami receive Tietze Awards

Drs. Laura Crisa, associate professor (Metabolism, Endocrinology & Nutrition) and Farid Moussavi-Harami, assistant professor (Cardiology) have received prestigious awards from the John H. Tietze Foundation Trust that will help fuel promising research underway in their labs.

With the John H. Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Award, the Crisa Lab will use tissue-chip technology to investigate mechanisms of resistance to metabolic stress in human stem cell-derived pancreatic islet cells. The researchers hope the findings will inform more effective transplant therapies for type 1 diabetes and other degenerative diseases.

The Jaconette L. Tietze Young Scientist Award will allow the Moussavi-Harami lab to engineer a new stem cell tool to directly measure sarcomere calcium levels in cardiomyopathy cells and in the presence of genetic mutations and medications that alter contractility. The goal is to better understand the mechanisms by which abnormal calcium levels contribute to cardiomyopathies.