Nicole Lopez
Graduate Student (Ph.D.)
Biomedical Sciences
Summary
Nicole is a Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Science graduate program at UC San Diego. She received her B.S. in Human Biology from California State University, Bakersfield. As an undergraduate, she participated in NSF’s REU program under the mentorship of Dr. Barbara Mellone at the University of Connecticut where she studied the developmental impact of neocentromere transmission in fruit flies. The REU program ignited Nicole’s interest in science and led her to join San Francisco State University’s CIRM Bridges to Stem Cell Research master’s program. As a CIRM fellow, she completed the research portion of her degree in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph C. Wu at Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. In the Wu lab, Nicole utilized iPSCs to create three dimensional cardiac microtissues and engineered heart tissues for in vitro testing of pharmaceutical biologics and chemicals.
After graduation, Nicole continued working with Dr. Wu’s group to conduct preflight testing of a project supported by NCATS and ISS National Lab to investigate the effect of microgravity on 3-D force generating engineered heart tissues. Eager to study cardiac electrophysiology, she next joined the laboratory of Dr. Karim Sallam at Stanford University where she investigated arrhythmic dysfunction of dilated cardiomyopathy hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and the effects of immunosuppressive drugs on cardiac microtissues at a functional and transcriptomic level. Over the course of her education and scientific training, Nicole has developed an earnest passion for biomedical science and translational research.
As a member of the Yeo lab, Nicole is broadly interested in leveraging iPSCs to study the role of RBPs in cardiovascular diseases.
Outside of the lab, Nicole enjoys reading stoic philosophy, golfing, boxing, and having cozy bonfires on the beach with her dog and friends.
Education
M.S., Biomedical Science, San Francisco State University, 2020
B.S., Human Biology, CSU Bakersfield, 2018
Publications
Sallam K., Thomas D., Gaddam S., Lopez N., Beck A., Beach L., Rogers A. J., Zhang H., Chen I. Y., Ameen M., Hiesinger W., Teuteberg J. J., Rhee J. W., Wang K. C., Sayed N., Wu J. C. (2022). Modeling Effects of Immunosuppressive Drugs on Human Hearts Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiac Organoids and Single-Cell RNA Sequencing. Circulation, 145(17):1367-1369.
Thomas D., Kim H., Lopez N., Wu J. C. (2021). Fabrication of 3D Cardiac Microtissue Arrays using Human iPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes, Cardiac Fibroblasts, and Endothelial Cells. Journal of Visualized Experiments: JoVE, 169.