Protocol preparation for research on reversible and irreversible electroporation of cardiac cells

The main objective of the research project ERC Potential is to carry out initial optimisation of the experimental protocols that will be used in our upcoming ERC-StG project. The latter will be focused on electroporation of cardiac cells with the aim of establishing fundamental knowledge needed to develop electroporation-based treatments for cardiac diseases. We will optimise a protocol to monitor the function of primary isolated cardiomyocytes using our new specialised system from IonOptix for simultaneous monitoring of action potentials, intracellular calcium transients, and sarcomere length using optical microscopy. We will optimise the protocol for protein expression analysis using the western blot method. We will establish a protocol for the extraction of collagen from rat tails, which will be used for the preparation of collagen hydrogels in our ERC-StG project. We will carry out the first tests with our new super-resolution microscope Zeiss ELYRA Lattice 7 SIM², which was obtained through the ARIS tender Paket 21 and that will be used to analyse samples in our ERC-StG project. We will also prepare and submit an application for ethical approval to use rats in our ERC-StG project. These preparations will allow for an efficient start of the ERC-StG project.