Yazawa Lab

Principal Investigators

As of July 1st, the Yazawa lab has moved to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Please contact Dr. Yazawa at masayuki.yazawa@mssm.edu.

The Yazawa laboratory uses interdisciplinary approaches including stem cell biology, electrophysiology, pharmacology, genetics, development, optics, and bioengineering to uncover the molecular mechanism underlying human genetic diseases and to develop new therapies. Our team uses human pluripotent stem cell and rodent models to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying genetic cardiac diseases including long QT syndrome and cardiomyopathy.

In particular, our team has focused on investigating rare children’s lethal diseases in order to identify new therapeutic targets since pharmaceutical companies have not targeted such rare diseases due to their marketing concern.

To understand further calcium handling in excitable tissues such as hearts, muscles, brains, and pancreas, we also work on identifying novel molecules that are essential for the tissue development and function and also could be new therapeutic target for human diseases.

Lab Members

Lab Members

  • Teresa M. Lee, MD

    • Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

  • Anastasiya Matveyenko

    • Technician

  • Anusha Tuli

    • Undergraduate Student

  • Lauren Qiu

    • Undergraduate Student

Former Lab Members

  • Ramsey Bekdash (through 2022)

  • Kazushige Yoshida (through 2022)

  • Brian Caballo (2021, summer)

  • Kathleen Zhang (2021, summer)

  • Danielle Baum (2019-2021)

  • Allison Klein (2019-2021)

  • Jose Quejada (2015-2020)

  • Kumi Morikawa (2016-2020)

  • Sayli Sonsurkar (2019-2020)

  • Amy Chalan (2017-2019)

  • Fuun Kawano, PhD (2017-2019)

  • Risako Yang (2019, summer)

  • Pedro del Rivero Morfin (2019, rotation)

  • Carl Mitchell (2019, rotation)

  • Hannah Yamamoto (2016-2019)

  • Daniel Wrocherinsky (2017, summer)

  • Shunnosuke Ueno (2015-2017)

  • LouJin Song (2013-2017)

  • Fan Shi (2015-2017)

  • Yumeko Kawano (2015-2017)

  • Seonhye Emily Park (2014-2016)

  • Eugenia Uche-Anya (2014)

  • Steven H. Su (2015, rotation)

  • Yoko Yabe (2013-2015)

  • Elizabeth Han (2013-2015)

  • Daniel W. Awari (2013-2014)

  • Yehuda Isseroff (2013)

Select Publications

  • Cabrera-Garcia D*, Bekdash R*, Abbott GW, Yazawa M# and Harrison N#. The envelope protein of SARS-CoV-2 increases intra-Golgi pH and forms a cation channel that is regulated by pH. J. Physiol. 2021 Jun;599(11):2851-2868. doi: 10.1113/JP281037. Epub 2021 Mar 24. PMID: 33709461  # Served equally as co-corresponding authors. * Contributed equally to this work as co-first authors.

  • Khan TA, Revah O, Gordon A, Yoon SJ, Krawisz AK, Goold C, Sun Y, Kim CH, Tian Y, Li MY, Schaepe JM, Ikeda K, Amin ND, Sakai N, Yazawa M, Kushan L, Nishino S, Porteus MH, Rapoport JL, Bernstein JA, O'Hara R, Bearden CE, Hallmayer JF, Huguenard JR, Geschwind DH, Dolmetsch RE, Paşca SP. Neuronal defects in a human cellular model of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Nature Medicine. 2020 Dec; 26(12): 1888-1898. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-1043-9. Epub 2020 Sep 28. PMID: 3298931

  • Nitta N, Iino T, Isozaki A, Yamagishi M, Kitahama Y, Sakuma S, Suzuki Y, Tezuka H, Oikawa M, Arai F, Asai T, Deng D, Fukuzawa H, Hase M, Hasunuma T, Hayakawa T, Hiraki K, Hiramatsu K, Hoshino Y, Inaba M, Inoue Y, Ito T, Kajikawa M, Karakawa H, Kasai Y, Kato Y, Kobayashi H, Lei C, Matsusaka S, Mikami H, Nakagawa A, Numata K, Ota T, Sekiya T, Shiba K, Shirasaki Y, Suzuki N, Tanaka S, Ueno S, Watarai H, Yamano T, Yazawa M, Yonamine Y, Di Carlo D, Hosokawa Y, Uemura S, Sugimura T, Ozeki Y, Goda K. Raman Image-Activated Cell Sorting. Nature Communications. 2020 Jul 10;11(1):3452. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17285-3.

  • Morikawa K, Furukawa K, de Sena-Tomas, C, Garcia-Garcia, AL, Bekdash R, Klein AD, Gallerani N, Yamamoto HE, Park SE, Collins GS, Kawano F, Sato M, Lin C-S, Targoff KL, Au E, Salling M and Yazawa M. Photoactivatable Cre recombinase 3.0 for in vivo mouse applications. Nature Communications. 2020 May 1;11(1):2141. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16030-0. PMCID: PMC7195411

  • Luchsinger LL, Strikoudis A, Danzl NM, Bush EC, Finlayson MO, Satwani P, Sykes M, Yazawa M and Snoeck H. Harnessing hematopoietic stem cell low intracellular calcium improves their maintenance in vitro. Cell Stem Cell. 2019 Aug 1;25(2):225-240.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2019.05.002. Epub 2019 Jun 6. PMID31178255

  • Nitta N, Sugimura T, Isozaki A, Mikami H, Hiraki K, Sakuma S, Iino T, Arai F, Endo T, Fujiwaki Y, Fukuzawa H, Hase M, Hayakawa T, Hiramatsu K, Hoshino Y, Inaba M, Ito T, Karakawa H, Kasai Y, Koizumi K, Lee S, Lei C, Li M, Maeno T, Matsusaka S, Murakami D, Nakagawa A, Oguchi Y, Oikawa M, Ota T, Shiba K, Shintaku H, Shirasaki Y, Suga K, Suzuki Y, Suzuki N, Tanaka Y, Tezuka H, Toyokawa C, Yalikun Y, Yamada M, Yamagishi M, Yamano T, Yasumoto A, Yatomi Y, Yazawa M, Di Carlo D, Hosokawa Y, Uemura S, Ozeki Y, Goda K. Intelligent Image-Activated Cell Sorting. Cell. 2018 Sep 20;175(1):266-276.e13. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.028. Epub 2018 Aug 27. PMID: 30166209

  • Ronaldson-Bouchard K, Ma S, Yeager K, Chen T, Song L, Sirabella D, Morikawa K, Teles D, Yazawa M and Vunjak-Novakovic G. Advanced maturation of human cardiac tissues from pluripotent stem cell. Nature. 2018 Apr;556(7700):239-243. doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0016-3. Epub 2018 Apr 4. PMID: 29618819

  • Shi F, Kawano F, Park SE, Komazaki S, Hirabayashi Y, Polleux F and Yazawa M. Optogenetic control of endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria tethering. ACS Synthetic. Biol. 2018 Jan 19;7(1):2-9. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.7b00248. Epub 2017 Dec 4. PMID: 29172503

  • Quejada JR, Park SE, Awari DW, Shi F, Yamamoto H, Kawano F, Jung JC and Yazawa M. Optimized Light-inducible Transcription in Mammalian Cells using Flavin Kelch-repeat Fbox1/GIGANTEA and CRY2/CIB1. Nucleic Acids Research. 2017 Nov 16;45(20):e172. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx804. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx804. Epub 2017 Oct 10. PMID: 29040770

  • Song L, Park SE, Isseroff Y, Morikawa K, Yazawa M. Inhibition of CDK5 alleviates the cardiac phenotypes in Timothy syndrome. Stem Cell Reports. July 11; 9(1)50-57. (2017). PMID: 28648896

  • Kawano F. Shi F and Yazawa M Optogenetics: Switching with red and blue. Nat. Chem. Biol. May 17;16(6):573-574. (2017). PMID: 28514429

  • Kawano F. Okazaki R, Yazawa M and Sato M. A photoactivatable Cre/loxP recombination system for optogenetic genome engineering. Nat. Chem. Biol. Dec;12(12):1059-1064 Epub 2016 Oct. 10. (2016). PMID: 27723747

  • Sun, N.*, Yazawa, M.*, Liu J, Han L, Sanchez-Freire V, Abilez OJ, Navarrete EG, Hu S, Wang L, Lee A, Pavlovic A, Lin S,z Chen R, Hajjar RJ, Snyder MP, Dolmetsch RE, Butte MJ, Ashley EA, Longaker MT, Robbins RC, Wu JC. Patient-Specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell as A Model for Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Science Translational Medicine. 4 (130), 130ra47 (2012). PMID: 22517884 *These authors contributed equally to this work.

  • Yazawa, M., Hsueh, B., Jia, X, Pasca, A.M., Bernstein, J.A., Hallmayer, J. and Dolmetsch, R.E. Using induced pluripotent stem cells to investigate cardiac phenotypes in Timothy syndrome. Nature 471, 230-234 (2011). PMID: 21307850

  • Yazawa, M., Sadaghiani, A.M., Hsueh, B. & Dolmetsch, R.E. Induction of protein-protein interactions in live cells using light. Nature Biotechnology. 27, 941-945 (2009). PMID: 19801976

  • Yazawa, M., Ferrante, C., Feng, J., Mio, K., Ogura, T., Zhang, M., Lin, PH., Pan, Z., Komazaki, S., Kato, K., Nishi, M., Zhao,X., Weisleder, N., Sato, C., Ma, J. and Takeshima, H. TRIC channels are essential for Ca2+ handling in intracellular stores. Nature 448, 78-82 (2007). PMID: 17611541