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Kay Research Group

Matthew W. Kay's research group within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at The George Washington University develops new ways to study cardiac physiology, with emphasis on mitochondrial function, electromechanics, and neurocardiology.

We develop innovative technologies to study hypoxia, heart failure, and sleep apnea, with an emphasis on mitochondrial function, arrhythmia mechanisms, and recent emphasis in neurocardiology. Our expertise is in high-speed optical assessments of organ level physiology, including optical mapping, time-resolved absorbance spectroscopy, and neurocardiac optogenetics. Panoramic optical mapping of membrane potential is used to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of arrhythmias. NADH imaging provides insight into mitochondrial metabolic fluctuations during myocardial ischemia and reperfusion. High-speed optical spectroscopy quantifies intracellular alterations of myoglobin oxygenation and mitochondrial redox state during high cardiac workloads and acute hypoxia. Our research provides deeper insight into the development of new clinical devices and pharmaceutical therapies to prevent sudden cardiac death and to reduce the debilitating impact of sleep apnea and heart failure.