Location: VU Life Sciences Center, R401 auditorium

Organization of the lecture is supported by Thermo Fisher Scientific

Abstract: There is an unmet clinical need to develop new treatments for many genetic diseases, such as cardiomyopathies. We aim to develop CRISPR technologies specifically for the safe and efficient application in human heart cells. This talk will focus on the engineering of base and prime editors and the current state of clinical translation.

Moreover, I will report on how we use gene editing tools in human cardiomyocytes and heart organoids to model both disease development and new genetic treatments.

Biosketch: Julian Grünewald is a physician-scientist, Emmy Noether group leader, and Assistant Professor of Gene Editing at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

His lab is focused on engineering new CRISPR technologies for research and therapeutic applications in cardiovascular medicine.

After medical school and training as a resident of internal medicine, Julian trained as a postdoc in the laboratory of J. Keith Joung at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.