Arun Sharma, PhD

Assistant Professor, Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, Smidt Heart Institute

Dr. Arun Sharma, is an assistant professor at the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Sharma’s research focuses on the applications of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for studying cardiovascular biology, modeling diseases “in a dish” using genome editing, and developing platforms for screening drug toxicity and efficacy. He led a project that sent human iPSC-derived heart cells to the International Space Station to study the effects of microgravity on human heart function. He remains actively involved in the space biosciences field. Dr. Sharma has trained at leading research institutions and published in journals such as Science, Nature Biotechnology, Science Translational Medicine, and Cell Stem Cell. He has received multiple awards for his work, including being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Science, the Compelling Results Award in Biology and Medicine from NASA, and the American Heart Association Career Development Award. He is an advocate for communicating science to general and scientific audiences through social media (@ArunSharmaPhD on Twitter) and public speaking (@StemCellPodcast).