Posnack Laboratory
About the Lab
The laboratory of Nikki Posnack, Ph.D., investigates the impact of environmental and clinical perturbations that can impact cardiovascular function. Recently, our team has focused on biocompatibility concerns surrounding inadvertent plastic chemical exposure from medical devices – including blood storage bags and cardiopulmonary bypass/ECMO circuits. Other projects in the lab are focused on red blood cell storage lesion and its role in cardiac complications and developing a 3D tissue model (from live human cardiac tissue) to study age-dependent effects of pharmacotherapies. Accordingly, my team has extensive expertise using a multitude of cardiovascular models, including intact heart and cellular preparations for electrophysiology, dual optical mapping of calcium/voltage, and contractility measurements. The latter also includes the use of large animal models for optocardiography studies, which are performed by only a handful of research groups.
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Lab Focus Areas
Pediatric cardiac physiology
Cardiac electrophysiology
Optical mapping
Cardiotoxicity and biocompatibility
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Partnerships
George Washington University, School of Medicine and Health Sciences
George Washington University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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Contact
Nikki Posnack, Ph.D. Principal Investigator, Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation nposnack@childrensnational.org 202-476-2475
Featured Publications
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Plastics and cardiovascular disease
Posnack NG PubMed PMID: 33159181 Nat Rev Cardiol 18(2):69-70. doi: 10.1038/s41569-020-00474-4 February (2021) -
Potential consequences of the red blood cell storage lesion on cardiac electrophysiology
Reilly M, Bruno CD, Prudencio TM, Ciccarelli N, Guerrelli D, Nair R, Ramadan M, Luban NLC, Posnack NG PubMed PMID: 33086931; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7763412. J Am Heart Assoc 9(21):e017748. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.120.017748. Epub October (2020) -
Bisphenols and phthalates: Plastic chemical exposures can contribute to adverse cardiovascular health outcomes
Ramadan M, Cooper B, Posnack NG PubMed PMID: 32691967 Birth Defects Res 112(17):1362-1385. doi: 10.1002/bdr2.1752. Epub July (2020) -
Chronic perinatal hypoxia delays cardiac maturation in a mouse model for cyanotic congenital heart disease
Posnack NG Journal of the American College of Cardiology doi: 10.1016/S0735-1097(20)31191-8 May (2020) -
Age-dependent changes in electrophysiology and calcium handling: Implications for pediatric cardiac research
Swift LM, Burke M, Guerrelli D, Reilly M, Ramadan M, McCullough D, Prudencio T, Mulvany C, Chaluvadi A, Jaimes R, Posnack NG PubMed PMID: 31886723; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7052624. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 318(2):H354-H365. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00521.2019. Epub December (2019)
