Stem Cells, Space and Cardiovascular Biology | Arun Sharma, PhD

Our conversation with Arun Sharma, PhD, discusses his work as a stem cell biologist, focusing on cardiovascular biology and space biosciences. He is an associate professor at Cedars-Sinai and is affiliated with the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, the Smidt Heart Institute and the Cancer Institute and the Department of Biomedical Sciences. He is the director of the Center for Space Medicine Research and the director of the CIRM (California Institute for Regenerative Medicine) Shared Resources Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai. Sharma also co-hosts The Stem Cell Podcast. Research in the Sharma laboratory focuses on the applications of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) for modeling cardiovascular diseases outside of the body (in-vitro). The lab utilizes cutting-edge technologies including hiPSCs, genome editing, cardiac organ-on-chips and 3D cardiac spheroids/organoids to understand the molecular mechanisms driving cardiovascular disease and heart development. In 2016, Sharma led a project that sent human stem cell-derived heart cells to the International Space Station (ISS) to study the effects of microgravity on human heart function, which was the first long-duration cell culture experiment in space. Hosted by Bobby Gordon, MA, MBA This episode was recorded on Oct. 17, 2025, and information presented herein is current at the time of recording. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OShNKaFfJfc