Ph.D. Candidate
Research
I obtained my B.S. in Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where I investigated the genome-wide structure of human blood gene expression using quantitative genetics techniques. After graduation, I worked first in the department of Pediatrics at Emory University studying neutrophil pathology in cystic fibrosis lung disease, and then in the Georgia Tech department of Biomedical Engineering using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes for disease modeling & regenerative medicine research. As a PhD student in the Dillin Lab, I am working with Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria to investigate the mechanisms by which modulated stress signaling pathways promote health and longevity in C. elegans.
Publications
Preininger, M.K., Jha, R., Maxwell, J.T., Wu, Q., Singh, M., Wang, B., Dalal, A., Mceachin, Z.T., Rossoll, W., Hales, C.M., Fischbach, P.S., Wagner, M.B., and Xu, C. (2016). A stem cell model of catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia recapitulates patient-specific drug responses. Disease Models and Mechanisms. 9:927-939.
Preininger, M.K., Singh, M., and Xu, C. (2016). Cryopreservation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes: strategies, challenges, and future directions. In Biobanking in the 21st Century (eds. Karimi-Busheri, F. and Weinfeld, M.) 951. Springer International Publishing.
Jha, R., Wu, Q., Singh, M., Preininger, M.K., Han, P., Ding, G., Cho, H.C., Jo, H., Maher, K., Wagner, M.B., and Xu, C. (2016) Simulated microgravity and 3D culture enhance induction, viability, proliferation, and differentiation of cardiac progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells. Scientific Reports 6:30956.
Ingersoll, S.A., Laval, J., Forrest, O.A., Preininger, M., Brown, M.R., Arafat, D., Gibson, G., Tangpricha, V., and Tirouvanziam, R. (2015). Mature cystic fibrosis airway neutrophils suppress T-cell function: evidence for a role of arginase 1, but not programmed death ligand 1. Journal of Immunology 194:5520-5528.
Nguyen, D.C., Hookway, T.A., Wu, Q., Jha, R., Preininger, M.K., Chen, X., Easley, C.A., Spearman, P., Deshpande, S.R., Maher, K., Wagner, M.B., McDevitt, T.C., and Xu, C. (2014). Microscale generation of cardiospheres promotes robust enrichment of cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Reports 3:260-268.
Preininger, M., Arafat, D., Kim, J., Nath, A.P., Idaghdour, Y., Brigham, K.L., and Gibson, G. (2013). Blood-informative transcripts define nine common axes of peripheral blood gene expression. PLOS Genetics 9:e1003362.
Tabassum, R., Nath, A., Preininger, M., and Gibson, G. (2013). Geographical, environmental and pathophysiological influences on the human blood transcriptome. Current Genetic Medicine Reports 1:203-211.