• Electrocardiography
• Cellular electrophysiology and pharmacology
• Mechanisms of Cardiac Arrhythmia

I spent my academic life as physician in Buenos Aires, Argentina, specializing in Cardiology. Understanding cardiac arrhythmias at the cellular and genetic level offers the best prospect for the development of new and better approaches to therapy. Such an understanding is best achieved by applying basic science principles to the problems that emerge in daily clinical practice. It is for these reasons that I sought to obtain basic science training to complement my clinical training in cardiology. Because of its prominence in the field of experimental cardiology, I selected the Masonic Medical Research. The postdoctoral fellowship program at the MMRL is unique among the various programs available worldwide in providing a solid bridge between basic and clinical science in the development of future therapies.

I am currently working with the canine arterially perfused wedge preparation of either the right or left ventricle. The arterially-perfused ventricular wedge preparation contains the different layers of the heart including epicardial, M region and endocardial layers and allows correlation of transmembrane action potentials simultaneously recorded from several sites across the ventricular wall of the wedge using floating glass microelectrodes with electrocardiographic activity recorded across the wedge preparation. This model permits the recording of the electrical gradient across the ventricular wall. This gradient is a crucial element in determining the possible genesis of abnormal rhythms of the heart or arrhythmias. One of the objectives of using this technique is to study the origin of the different waves of the ECG under normal and especially abnormal clinical conditions. Most importantly, the model is capable of reproducing the electrocardiographic and arrhythmic manifestations of sudden cardiac death syndromes, such as Brugada, Short QT and Long QT Syndromes.

Abnormal expression of cardiac neural crest in heart development.  A different hypothesis for the etiopathogenesis of the Brugada syndrome and other allied electrical disorders. 
Elizari MV, Levi R, Chiale PA, Acunzo RS, Ferreiro, M, Sicouri S.
J. Neurophysiol. 85:54-60, 2001.
PubMed ID:17341404

Elizari MV, Acunzo RS, Ferreiro, M. Hemiblocks Revisited.
(2007) Circulation 6; 115(9):1154-632.
PubMed ID: 17339573

In Vitro effects of acute amiodarone and dronedarone on epicardial, endocardial and M cells of the canine ventricle.  
Moro S,  Ferreiro M, Celestino D, Medei E, Elizari MV, Sicouri S.
Journal of Cardiovasc. Pharmacol. Ther, in press, 2007