Dr. Nanako Kawaguchi

I have examined the stemness and differentiation ability of adult-derived cardiac stem cells and induced pluripotent cells (iPS) cells for the past 14 years. I primarily focused on mesenchymal differentiation by using microarray and proteomic analysis. During this research, we observed that stem cells regulate the surrounding cells via soluble factors. I am further interested in the clinical applications of these stem cells, such as using them as a replacement for damaged tissues or as a source of soluble factors to enhance the viability of the cells within the target tissues (infracted heart). Furthermore, I joined a project for establishing an in vitro disease model for congenital heart diseases using the patients’ derived iPS cells performed at the department of Pediatric Cardiology at the Tokyo Women’s Medical University. Recently, I also joined pathological studies for pulmonary artery hypertension using rats.