Molecular Advances in Cardiac Repairs and Regeneration
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 26
Special Issue Editor
2. Health Sciences Ph.D. Program, Department of Public Health & Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069, USA
Interests: cardiovascular pathophysiology; regenerative medicine; synthetic and systems biology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cardiovascular disease remains the foremost global cause of mortality. Lethal pathological conditions, such as myocardial infarction and heart failure, cause irreversible loss of cardiomyocytes or contractile function. The current therapies mitigate progression but cannot fully defend or replace damaged myocardium, prompting an urgent drive toward molecularly targeted protective or regenerative strategies. Recently, rapid advances in single- and multi-omic technologies, especially using single‑cell profiling, have illuminated the regulatory circuits governing cardiomyocyte protection and proliferation, immune–stromal–myocyte interactions, metabolic reprogramming, and proteostasis during repair. This collection invites original research and review manuscripts that define the molecular logic of cardiac protection and regeneration and leverage innovative molecular‑scale tools to interrogate or manipulate these processes.
Areas of interest include dissection of pro‑ and anti‑protective or regenerative signaling cascades, such as Hippo–YAP, Wnt/β‑catenin, and calcium‑dependent pathways; precision mapping of altered cardiac bioenergetic and biosynthetic capacities; and elucidation of protein quality control and post‑translational modifications safeguarding proteome integrity and cell survival. We also seek studies deploying CRISPR‑based editing, high‑resolution molecular imaging, biosensors, spatially resolved omics, and synthetic and systems biology approaches to probe or enhance protective and regenerative pathways. Investigations into engineered extracellular vesicles and matrices, targeted cardiac delivery, and integrative multi‑omic or machine learning models linking molecular events to functional recovery are highly encouraged.
By uniting mechanistic insight with cutting‑edge molecular methodologies, this collection aims to accelerate the discovery, validation, and translation of molecular interventions capable of restoring myocardial structure and function, ultimately advancing the frontier of clinically actionable cardiac repair and regeneration.
Dr. William C.W. Chen
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cardiac regeneration
- cardioprotection
- molecular cardiology
- regenerative signaling pathways
- metabolic reprogramming
- protein quality control
- post‑translational modifications
- single‑cell and spatial omics
- multi-omics
- CRISPR‑based genome and epigenome editing
- high‑resolution molecular imaging
- synthetic and systems biology
- artificial intelligence and machine learning
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