Tara Tassin, PhD

Tara Tassin, PhD, is an instructor and research scholar in the Sadek Lab at the Sarver Heart Center.

Dr. Tassin is a molecular and cellular biologist whose research focuses on basic cardiomyocyte biology, genetic cardiomyopathy and rare disease models that affect the heart. Her work uses preclinical and human cell-based systems to study how disease-causing mutations alter cardiomyocyte structure, function and calcium-mediated contraction.

Her current research includes studies of troponin-mediated dilated cardiomyopathy, a genetic form of heart disease that can progress to systolic dysfunction and heart failure. She also investigates potential therapeutic strategies for Fabry disease-associated cardiomyopathy, including the repurposing of FDA-approved drugs to reduce disease-related lipid accumulation in human cell and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte models.

At the Sarver Heart Center, Dr. Tassin contributes to research aimed at identifying early mechanisms of heart disease and developing new strategies to protect, repair and regenerate the heart.