Orlando Chirikian - 2023

Biography 

     Orlando earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Loyola Marymount University in 2014. He received two masters: one in Biotechnology with an emphasis in Stem Cell Technology and the other in Business Administration (MBA) at California State University in 2017. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program at University California Santa Barbara. 

Research

     Orlando's research focuses include cardiac development and disease modeling, genome engineering, tissue engineering, and optogenetics using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (IPSC) technology as a model. He is developing an optogenetic tool to control the activity of Yes Associated Protein (YAP), a well known transcriptional regulator of the Hippo Pathway. YAP plays a pivotal role in many processes throughout development and disease like cellular regulation of organ size. This optogenetic tool, termed OptoYAP, will allow him to study YAP's role in both development and disease states of the heart, specifically Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.