Professor Dr Alessandra Moretti

Research Priorities: Cardiac development, pluripotent stem cell-based cardiac models, cardiac regeneration, cardiac diseases, cardiac cell therapy
Alessandra Moretti is an Italian chemist and pharmacist. Her research seeks to identify the mechanisms of human heart diseases and to dissect the principles of human cardiac development. She has delivered pioneering work in the area of modelling human heart diseases. With the insights from Alessandra Moretti’s research it is possible to design novel therapeutic strategies for the regeneration of heart function after illness and for heart regeneration following injuries.
After birth, the human heart loses its regenerative capacity almost completely, resulting in heart diseases being the most common cause of death worldwide. There is thus an urgent need in the field of cardiovascular medicine to develop novel therapeutic tools and approaches to restore proper function of diseased hearts and to regenerate cardiac muscle after injury. Alessandra Moretti’s research addresses this need by focusing on a multidisciplinary approach that integrates principles of stem cell biology, cardiac development, and bioengineering. 
With her research Alessandra Moretti would like to develop an understanding of the cellular and molecular processes regulating heart formation. Her working group is interested in how these processes are disrupted in congenital heart defects and how knowledge from development can be used to explore new regenerative approaches in adults. In addition to mouse and pig models, the team uses human pluripotent stem cells. They have the potential to differentiate into various cardiac cell types and allow the creation of three-dimensional tissue cultures. Cardiac organoids are a particular focus and here Alessandra Moretti is at the forefront: She established the first self-organising cardiac organoid showing the co-development of ventricular myocardium and epicardium, named epicardioid. Her goal is to use cardiac organoids as models of human embryonic heart development and regeneration.
Another central focus of Alessandra Moretti’s research is the modelling of human cardiac diseases. For this purpose she uses pluripotent stem cells from patients and methods such as CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and bioprinting – modern methods from molecular biology and biotechnology – as well as sophisticated imaging techniques. This work serves to identify mechanisms of pathogenesis and to test novel therapeutic strategies in patient-specific backgrounds. Alessandra Moretti has pioneered the field by modelling arrhythmogenic disorders and demonstrating ways to develop personalised medicine and diagnostics.