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University Degli Studi Di Firenze

UNIFI is one of Italy’s most important and productive institutions for public research of significant national and international interest.

Role in the project

UNIFI is contributing to the implementation, harmonization and curation of the SMASH-HCM Databank, with patient data and additional control data, irreversibly anonymized at source for GDPR and ethical compliance to be ready for data aggregation and management. UNIFI will lead WP3 (In-vitro HCM and patient models) and will provide electrophysiological and mechanical data from HCM patients, characterize hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes for action potential and ion channels and engineered heart tissues for mechanical analysis and drug testing. This involves generating iPSC derived cardiomyocytes and EHTs. CMs will be differentiated from iPSC lines currently available in the UNIFI, TAU and UKE laboratories including patients carrying frequent HCM-associated thick filament, thin filament and non-sarcomeric mutations. Data from in-vitro simulations will also be linked to the database. UNIFI also contributes to the requirements specification and co-design of the decision support solution, with clinical experts, patients, and other key stakeholders to ensure its acceptance, value, and sustainability. UNIFI, together with its associated entity Careggi University Hospital, will provide the cardiological expertise as well as be involve din stakeholders engagement by linking with patient organizations. Finally, UNIFI will be the main responsible for the social science component of the project, studying dimensions of well-being and quality of life related to HCM in the available literature and attempting a tailored approach to measure these dimensions in the specific context of the project.

Colleagues working on the project

Photo Iacopo Olivotto

Iacopo Olivotto

Professor
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Prof. Iacopo Olivotto is Head of the Cardiology Unit at Meyer University Children Hospital, Head of the Cardiomyopathy  Service at Careggi University Hospital, and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Florence, Italy. Over the last two decades, his main clinical and research interests have included various aspects of cardiomyopathies, with special focus on the translational investigation of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Prof. Olivotto has pioneered the design and execution of randomized clinical trials in genetic cardiomyopathies, including the seminal Explorer HCM (as the lead authors) and Sequoia HCM trials involving cardiac myosin inhibitors for symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. He has co-authored over 350 papers in international, peer-reviewed journals. Prof. Olivotto is a co-founder of The Sarcomeric Human Cardiomyopathy Registry (Share), ICON (International CardiomyOpathy Network), and the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Medical Association.

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Corrado Poggesi

MD, Emeritus Professor
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Full Professor of Physiology at the University of Florence since 1994. Currently, member designed by the Italian Ministery of University & Research in the Board of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Research (INRC); Senior Consultant Editor of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology and editorial activities for a number of additional journals. 2013-2020 Head of the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence. 2018-2020 President of the Italian Physiological Society. Awarded with several grants from the European Union, Italian Ministery of University & Research, Telethon. His research activity is related to biophysical aspects of the contractile mechanism in skeletal and cardiac muscle (Excitation-Contraction Coupling, Contraction regulation and Chemo-Mechanical transduction). Micromechanics and microperfusion techniques have been developed in his lab to measure sarcomere mechanics in single myofibrils isolated from cardiac and skeletal muscle from human and animal models. These techniques have been successfully applied to investigate genetic myopathies and cardiomyopathies. He has recently contributed to the development of novel optical techniques to investigate arrhythmogenic mechanisms and E-C coupling in cardiac muscle. He is author of more than 130 scientific papers with more than 4700 quotations and an h index of 42 (WOS).

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Josè Manuel Pioner

PhD
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Master of Science in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (University of Florence) and PhD in Molecular Medicine (University of Siena). Current position (2020 to date): Fixed-term Researcher at the Department of Biology, University of Florence. Lecturer of Comparative and General Physiology, School of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences, University of Florence. Research expertise: cardiac muscle excitation-contraction coupling, muscle mechanics, myofibril mechanics, electrophysiology, calcium transients, induced pluripotent stem cells and tissue engineering, genetic cardiomyopathies and muscular dystrophy modelling. Coordinator of the 20223L2C9N project and Unit PI of the GR-2021-12375403 project focused on the precision medicine in dystrophin-cardiomyopathies, 2023-2026 granted by the Italian Ministry of Health. Unit PI of the G23_63 project iPSC modeling of DMD-associated cardiomyopathy 2023-2024 granted by the Université Franco-Italienne. Previously, postdoc for the SILICOFCM European project 777204 (H2020-SC1-2017-CNECT-2) and of two Telethon Italy funded projects (GGP16191, GUP19012A).

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