As a clinician pursuing a DPhil in Professor Barbara Casadei's group, my work involves investigating the effects of Nitric Oxide Synthase 1 Adaptor Protein (NOS1AP) on cardiac repolarisation and arrhythmogenesis. Variations in non-coding regions within the gene coding for NOS1AP have been consistently found in human studies to be linked to measures of cardiac electrical activity (the QT interval) and risk of sudden cardiac death due to abnormal heart rhythms in a wide variety of populations.

My work aims to use a transgenic mouse overexpressing NOS1AP in the heart to investigate its effects on QT interval and inducibility of ventricular arrhythmias by a variety of techniques including in vivo arrhythmia induction, optical mapping, patch clamping and immunohistochemistry. We are also investigating these effects in human cardiac cells.

These investigations will elucidate the mechanisms by which NOS1AP and NOS1 alter myocardial repolarisation and excitability and further our understanding of the mechanisms of unexplained sudden cardiac death in otherwise healthy people beyond well characterised but rare single gene syndromes.