Annotation: Cardiovascular diseases arise from complex changes in cellular identity, tissue organization, and molecular function. Single-cell and spatial technologies now allow us to resolve these changes at unprecedented depth and to move beyond static snapshots of the human heart. In this talk, I will illustrate how single-nucleus transcriptomics has uncovered disease-specific cellular and molecular signatures in cardiomyopathies and how these insights can be extended across time and space. This includes defining molecular trajectories of cardiac aging, studying dynamic graft–host interactions in cardiac allo- and xenotransplantation, and identifying spatial immune niches that shape myocardial inflammation. Ultimately, the goal is not only to describe disease, but to intervene causally. I will therefore discuss how next-generation genome-editing approaches, including base and prime editing, can be used to correct disease-causing variants and how improved delivery strategies may enable their future clinical translation.
Biography: Daniel Reichart is a cardiologist and physician-scientist at LMU University Hospital and the Gene Center Munich, where he leads an Emmy Noether research group focused on molecular mechanisms and causal therapies in cardiovascular disease. Following clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology in Munich, he conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School in the laboratories of Christine and Jonathan Seidman. His work combines human single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, genome editing, and translational cardiovascular models to study cardiomyopathies, cardiac aging, inflammation, and transplantation. He has contributed as lead author to major human heart cell atlases published in Nature and Science and led work demonstrating in-vivo base editing for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy published in Nature Medicine. His current research aims to move from static molecular descriptions of cardiovascular disease toward a dynamic understanding of disease trajectories, tissue interactions, and ultimately the development of precise causal therapies.
IPHYS contact: Mgr. Lukáš Chmátal, Ph.D.; lukas.chmatal@fgu.cas.cz
