Engineering Regenerative Strategies in Cardiovascular Tissue Biology

Research Areas

Cardiac Tissue Regeneration

Following a cardiac event the heart does not heal sufficiently. It becomes scarred, leading to reduced function and quality of life. The Monaghan Lab uses tunable biomaterial scaffolds using both biomechanical and biomolecular stimuli to mimic the cardiac environment to re-grow cardiac cells.

Biomaterials

Our group focuses on the fabrication of natural polymer based scaffolds enriched with synthetic compounds to further recapitulate the in vivo environment towards creating models whereby mechanical, chemical and electrical stimulation can enrich cell differentiation and function.

These scaffolds can be further functionalized as tunable depots of pharmaceutical agents, gene delivery and silencing and modifiers of epigenetics.

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Dr. Michael Monaghan

Ussher Assistant Professor

Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, Trinity College Dublin

Treasurer

Matrix Biology Ireland

European Doctoral Award

European Society of Biomaterials

Research Fellow

NUI Galway College of Engineering and Informatics

University Scholar

NUI Galway

News

Jan 19th 2017 Monaghan Lab is now online!
Jan 9th 2017 Welcome to Thomas Storwick who joins us from Waterloo, Canada
20th Dec 2017 The Monaghan Lab has just been awarded Seed funding from Trinity College Dublin, supported by the Wellcome Trust.
Dec 7th 2017 Monaghan Lab welcomes Harry Burns who is conducting his BAI project in the lab.
17th Nov 2017 The Monaghan Lab is hosting the 2017 meeting of Matrix Biology Ireland!
17th Nov 2017 Dr Monaghan has been elected to the council of Matrix Biology Ireland and the treasurer of the Society!
20th Sept 2017 Monaghan Lab welcomes two new members. Caroline Patel (MSc in Bioengineering) and Jackson Rose (MAI in Biomedical Engineering)

Recent Pubications

Lakner P.H*, Monaghan M. G*, M, Möller Y, Olayioye M.A, Schenke-Layland K. Applying a phasor approach analysis of multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy measurements to probe the metabolic activity of three-dimensional in vitro cell culture models. Sci Rep. (accepted January 2017. *Both authors contributed equally).
Brauchle E, Knopf A, Bauer H, Shen N, Linder S, Monaghan M.G, Ellwanger K, Layland S.L, Brucker S.Y, Nsair A, Schenke-Layland K. Non-invasive chamber-specific identification of cardiomyocytes in differentiating pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Rep. 6 (2016) 188-99.
Monaghan M.G, Linneweh M, Liebscher S, van Handel B, Layland S.L, Schenke-Layland K. Endocardial-to-mesenchymal transformation and mesenchymal cell colonization at the onset of human cardiac valve development. Development, 143 (2016) 473-482.
Monaghan M.G, Holeiter M, Layland S.L, Schenke-Layland K, Cardiomyocyte generation from somatic sources - current status and future directions. Curr Opin Biotechnol., 40 (2016) 49-55.
Monaghan M.G, Kroll S, Brucker S.Y, Schenke-Layland K, Enabling multiphoton and second harmonic generation imaging in paraffin embedded and histologically stained sections. Tissue Eng Part C Methods, 22 (2016) 517-23.
Groeber F, Engelhardt L, Egger S, Werthmann H, Monaghan M, Walles H, Hansmann J. Impedance spectroscopy for the non-destructive evaluation of in vitro epidermal model. Pharm Res., 32 (2015) 1845-54.
Dash, B.C., Thomas, D., Monaghan, M., Carroll, O., Chen, X., Woodhouse, K., O'Brien, T., Pandit, A., An injectable elastin-based gene delivery platform for dose-dependent modulation of angiogenesis and inflammation for critical limb ischemia, Biomaterials, 65, 2015, p126-139
Browne S, Monaghan M, Brauchle E, Carvajal Berrio D, Chantepie-Laborde S, Papy-Garcia D, Schenke-Layland K, Pandit A. Modification of inflammation and angiogenesis and changes in the ECM GAG-activity via dual delivery of nucleic acids. Biomaterials, 69 (2015) 133-47.
Monaghan M, Browne S, Schenke-Layland K, Pandit A. A collagen-based scaffold delivering exogenous microRNA-29B to modulate extracellular matrix remodelling. Mol Ther., 22 (2014) 786-789
Schesny M, Monaghan M, Bindermann A, Freund D, Seifert M, Eble J, Hinderer S, Schenke-Layland K. Preserved bioactivity and tunable release of a SDF1-GPVI bispecific protein using photocrosslinked PEGda hydrogels, Biomaterials, 35 (2014) 7180-7187.