PhD topic / position: Study of arrhythmogenesis in drugs used in clinical practice

PhD study programme: Physiology, Pathological Physiology, Medical Chemistry and Biochemistry
Specialization: Physiology
Form of the study: PhD full-time study
Workplace: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Markéta Bébarová, MD, PhD

Annotation:

Many drugs used in clinical practice show adverse side effects including genesis of arrhythmias. Mechanism of their proarrhythmic action, i.e. of their action on cardiac electrophysiology, is often unknown. These proarrhythmic adverse effects limit clinical use of the drugs and endanger health and possibly also the lives of patients treated with them. The content of this dissertation will be analysis of the effect of a selected drug (for example the bronchodilator aminophylline usually used to treat asthma attacks) on cardiac cell/tissue electrophysiology (whole cell patch clamp technique and/or multielectrode array). Enzymatically isolated cardiomyocytes of rat, pig and human as well as human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes will be used within the project. The aim of this study will be to master the necessary methodologies and, using them, to analyse changes in cardiac electrophysiology in the presence of the selected drug.
Grant Support: Grant Agency of MU – Specific Research, external grant project submitted

Availability of Workload or Project Financing (beyond the scholarship from MU):

Scholarship from the Specific Research at MU, workload from a grant project if assigned. Workload from the institutional budget is at discretion of the head of the department after the student is involved in teaching.

Brief requirements for the student according to current requirements of the doctoral board:

• completion of compulsory courses
• completion of compulsory internship abroad (at least 1 month-stay) or participation in an international project with results published/presented abroad or other form of direct participation on an international cooperation
• at least one first author publication in a journal with IF above the median IF in the field (or two first author publication in a journal with IF in Q3)
• participation in teaching of undergraduate students
• good passive as well as active knowledge of English
• basic knowledge of Czech beneficial

Supervisor:
Assoc. Prof. Markéta Bébarová, MD, PhD ([email protected] )
- publication activity: 44 papers in extenso (29 in journals with IF - 25 original research papers and 4 review papers), h-index 10
- grant projects: e.g. AZV (16-30571A; 2016-2020); IGA MZd (NT14301-3/2013; 2013-2015); Grant Agency of MU (e.g. MUNI/A/1246/2020, MUNI/A/1307/2019); Internal Project of LF MU (MUNI/11/SUP/07/2020, MUNI/11/SUP/18/2020)
- international cooperation in the field of study: prof. Torsten Christ (University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany), prof. Paul G.A. Volders, dr. Jordi Heijman (Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands), Dr. Georges Christé (Inserm, Lyon, France)
- supervised PhD students/PhD graduates: 2/0