7th Annual CTMR Symposium
WHEN: Wednesday, September 16, 2026 | 9:00am – 6:00 pm PT
WHERE: UW South Lake Union (SLU) campus (850 Republican St., Seattle, WA, 98109), C Building, Orin Smith Auditorium
THEME: ENGINEERED MUSCLE TISSUES AND ORGANOIDS
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: We are honored to host two keynote speakers this year:
- Kevin Healy, PhD, Jan Fandrianto and Selfia Halim Distinguished Professorship in Engineering, Departments of Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley,
Talk Title: Exploiting new approach methodologies (NAMs) for discovery and optimization of heart therapeutics - Hector Rodriguez, PhD, Vice President of New Targets, Kardigan, Talk Title: From bench to bedside: a LGMD story
INVITED SPEAKERS SESSION:
- Nicholas Geisse, PhD, CEO of Curi Bio, Talk Title: TBA
- Nate Sniadecki, PhD, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UW, Talk Title: TBA
AND MORE: In addition, you will hear from CTMR Pilot Awardees and poster presenters during the lightning talks and poster sessions. Don’t forget the networking lunch and vendor fair!
Abstract Submission:
Submitting an abstract for a poster presentation (and an optional lightning talk) is a great opportunity to learn about exciting new research and to make connections with potential collaborators.
To be considered for a poster presentation, abstracts must be submitted by September 8, 2026 at 9 AM. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-docs, staff, and faculty involved in muscle research, or any related fields are encouraged to submit an abstract.
To submit an abstract please email the following information to Katie Mitzelfelt (kmitz@uw.edu):
- Include the email subject heading: “2026 CTMR Poster Abstract”
- A single PDF file containing title, authors, and abstract (250-word limit)
- Please indicate whether the presenting author is an undergraduate, graduate student, postdoctoral fellow, staff, faculty, or other role.
- Indicate whether you are interested in giving a lightening talk at the symposium (3 min talk with 2 min for questions) in addition to your poster presentation.
Deadline for abstract submission: 5:00pm on Monday, November 3, 2025
Past Symposia
Sarcomere Society:
Online bi-weekly seminar series, Thursdays 8-9 am Pacific Time, covering current state-of-the-art research related to sarcomere structure and function.
Join our listserv to receive email notifications of Sarcomere Society presentations and Zoom links to attend.
Contact the Sarcomere Society Speaker Selection Committee – Drs Matt Childers & Joe Powers – to let us know about exciting new research you would like to present at an upcoming seminar (mcc7fb@uw.edu or powersjd@uw.edu).
Oct 8, 2026
Speaker: TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Oct 22, 2026
Speaker: TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Nov 5, 2026
Speaker: TBA
Talk Title: TBA
The International Sarcomere Society Seminar Series was founded by Drs. Mike Regnier, Mike Geeves, and Bill Lehman.
Breakfast Club Seminar Series
Weekly Thursdays from 9-10 am at the UW SLU campus & Zoom
Breakfast Club is a SLU seminar event hosted weekly by UW faculty members from various fields and departments including cardiology, pathology, metabolism, molecular and cellar biology, and other biomedical and genome science related disciplines. Each week an esteemed speaker, either local or invited Distinguished Lecturers from out of town, will come to give a 50-minute presentation plus 10-minutes for questions on topics in cardiovascular biology ranging from research to general health issues to scientific methodology.
Upcoming CTMR-Hosted Speakers in 2025-2026 Academic Year
This year, the CTMR is thrilled to be hosting the following distinguished lecturers at Breakfast Club:
- October 30, 2025: Samantha Harris, PhD, Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Arizona
- November 20, 2025: Bradley Morgan, PhD, Senior Vice President, Research & Non-Clinical Development, Cytokinetics
- Rescheduled for Spring 2027: Pete Kekenes-Husky, PhD, Associate Professor, Cell & Molecular Physiology, Loyola University Chicago
Past CTMR-Hosted Speakers (2024-2025 Academic Year)
Past CTMR-Hosted Speakers (2023-2024 Academic Year)
Relevant Links:
CTMR-Hosted Workshops & Trainings
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
Please check back for future workshops.
PAST WORKSHOPS
The CTMR Quantitative Analysis Core is excited to host a FREE introductory workshop on using the Command Line for Scientific Computing.
- First workshop in a potential series of Software Carpentry workshops
- Exposure to the command line and interacting with computing infrastructure using the terminal with Shell
- Covers the fundamental toolkit necessary when accessing advanced computing solutions like UW’s Hyak and Amazon Web Services
- Concepts and motivations include: Automation of repetitive tasks, efficient data handling and hygiene, reproducibility and portability, and leveraging the ever-expanding universe of command line tools for science and engineering
Who: Grad students, postdocs, staff, or faculty
What: Hands-on workshop on using the command line for scientific computing, facilitated by CTMR researchers.
Myofilament Meeting- Workshops hosted by the CTMR
The UW Center for Translational Muscle Research was proud to be a co-sponsor of the 2024 Myofilament Meeting [link] in Madison, WI. CTMR members Mike Regnier, Matt Childers, and Travis Tune presented research updates and led topical workshops on modeling myofilament diseases using iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and computational methods.
Workshops | May 21, 2024:
iPSC workshop, organized by Mike Regner, Carter Ralphe, and Kareen Coulombe
Computational approaches in myofilament research, organized by Mike Regnier
This workshop will introduce new models and analytical tools at two scales – the actomyosin complex and the sarcomere. The goal is to demonstrate the usefulness of these models and tools, then have a discussion of what additional development of modeling approaches would be most useful to experimentalists.
Left to right: Anthony Asencio, Matt Childers, Travis Tune, Farid Moussavi-Harami, Mike Regnier, Kareen Coulombe, Kristi Kooiker, Sonette Steczina, Saffie Mohran, Kerry Kao
Check back for upcoming special events!
Past Special Events:
Past Sarcomere Society Talks:
June 18, 2026 — Wen Ma, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Vermont
Allosteric Regulation of Cardiac Myosin by Cardiomyopathy Mutations and Small Molecules
June 4, 2026 — Meaghan Barry, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dept. of Cardiology, Cammarato Lab and Kass Lab
Phosphorylation and Phylogeny: TnI-T18 redefines HFpEF model systems
May 7, 2026 — Morgan Seffrood, PhD Candidate, Colson Lab, University of Arizona
Structural Dynamics of Slow Skeletal MyBP-C N-terminal Domains: Effects of Phosphorylation and Splicing in the Pro/Ala-Rich Linker
April 23, 2026 — Anne Houdusse-Juille, PhD, Anne Houdusse Lab, Cell Biology and Cancer Department, Institut Curie, Paris, France
Myosin Conformational Dynamics Modulate Cardiac Output in Disease and Therapy
April 9, 2026 — Ilaria Morotti, PhD, Postdoc, PhysioLab (Lombardi Group), University of Florence
Cardiac performance and dual filament activation
February 12, 2026 — Laura Sherer, PhD, Postdoc, Jonathan Kirk Lab, Loyola University Chicago
Post-Transcriptional Regulation of BAG3 During Cardiac Stress
January 29, 2026 — Kerry Kao, PhD, Postdoc, Powers & Regnier Labs, University of Washington
The G256E HCM mutation prolongs relaxation via altered nucleotide handling
January 15, 2026 — Arun Somavarapu, PhD, Instructor / Padron–Craig Lab, UMass Chan Medical School
Cryo-EM Reveals How Cardiomyopathy Therapeutic Drugs Modulate the Myosin Motors of the Heart
December 18, 2025 — Garrett Crosby, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Sarver Heart Center
An in-vitro and in-silico approach to studying disordered regions of the cardiac thin filament
December 4, 2025 — Maicon Landim-Vieira, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Illinois Institute of Technology
Calmodulin-mediated regulation of the cardiac sarcomere function
November 6, 2025 — Clayton E. Friedman, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Murry/Yang Labs, University of Washington
Rules of the Rod: MYH7 Variant Effects Across the Entire β-MHC Coiled-Coil Domain
October 23, 2025 — Filip Jezek, PhD, Beard Lab, University of Michigan
Passive stress relaxation of cardiac muscle follows calcium-dependent power-law
October 9, 2025 — Rama Reddy Goluguri, PhD, Basic Life Research Scientist, Spudich/Ruppel Lab, Stanford University
A FRET assay to monitor different structural states of human β-cardiac myosin including the interacting-heads motif
June 5, 2025 — Dr. Ken Campbell, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine & Physiology, Director of Translational Research, University of Kentucky
Computer modeling of sarcomere function and regulation in disease
May 22, 2025 — Dr. Matthew Childers, Research Scientist, & Kerry Kao, PhD Candidate, Regnier Lab, Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington
Computational and experimental study of ADP release from G256E myosin
May 8, 2025 — Dr. Abby Nagle, Postdoc, Davis Lab, University of Washington
Spatially Explicit Force Sensation due to Contraction at Cardiomyocyte Adhesions
April 10, 2025 — Jake Wen, student, Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Screening Single Nucleotide Changes to Tropomyosin to Identify Novel Cardiomyopathy Mutants
March 27, 2025 — Dr. Daniel Fitzsimons, Department of Animal, Veterinary, and Food Sciences, University of Idaho
Examining contractile dynamics in the mammalian heart
March 13, 2025 — Dr. Natalia Koubassova, Professor, Institute of Mechanics, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Annotating the X-ray diffraction pattern of vertebrate striated muscle
February 20, 2025 — No meeting — Biophysical Society Annual Meeting
February 6, 2025 — Dr. Peter Kekenes-Husky, Associate Professor, Loyola Dept. of Cell and Molecular Physiology
Molecular mechanisms of GSK3β-driven modulation of ABLIM1 and titin interactions in cardiac muscle
March 22, 2024 — Kyrah Turner (Tanner Lab)
Regulatory light chain phosphorylation modifies myocardial structure and function
March 7, 2024 — Dr. Christian Mandrycky
MYH3 mutations associated with distal arthrogryposis alter the contractility and myosin isoform switching of hiPSC derived skeletal muscle
February 22, 2024 — Dr. Matthew Childers
Structural Communication in Troponin C from Picoseconds to Microseconds
January 25, 2024 — Dr. Charlotte (Charlie) Scaff
Swinging lever mechanism of myosin directly demonstrated by time-resolved cryoEM
January 11, 2024 — Dr. Debabrata Dutta
Cryo-EM structure of the human cardiac myosin filament
December 14, 2023 — Dr. Jia Li
Stretch Harmonizes Sarcomere Strain Across the Cardiomyocyte
November 30, 2023 — Dr. Chao Liu
Homologous mutations in β, embryonic, and perinatal muscle myosins have divergent effects on molecular power
October 19, 2023 — Dr. Matthew Childers
Molecular Dynamics simulations to study the structure of the myosin Interacting Heads Motif (IHM)
October 5, 2023 — Dr. Julien Robert-Paganin
Cryo-EM structure of the folded-back state of human β-cardiac myosin
March 6, 2023 — Renato Arnese
Molecular features of the UNC-45 chaperone critical for binding and folding muscle myosin
February 9, 2023 — Kristi Kooiker
Danicamtiv increases myosin recruitment and alters the chemomechanical cross bridge cycle in cardiac muscle
January 26, 2023 — Anna Katarina Antonovic
Comparative study of binding pocket structure and dynamics in cardiac and skeletal myosin
December 15, 2022 — Sage Malingen
In vivo X-ray diffraction and simultaneous EMG reveal the time course of myofilament lattice dilation and filament stretch
November 17, 2022 — Steve Marston
Present a paper by Zang/Marston/Gould on the structural analysis of cardiac troponin with phosphorylation and selected mutations
November 3, 2022 — Wen Ma
Integrating comparative modeling and accelerated simulations reveals conformational and energetic basis of actomyosin force generation
October 20, 2022 — Ali Hojjatian
Visualization of Actin Filaments Decorated with Smooth Muscle Myosin 2 Subfragment 1 and Heavy Meromyosin by CryoElectron Tomography
August 25, 2022 — Luisa Moretto
Multistep orthophosphate release tunes actomyosin energy transduction
July 28, 2022 — Sonette Steczina
Mechanistic insights of an HCM MYBPC3 mutation with founder effect in Tuscany utilizing patient myectomy samples and a corresponding iPSC-CM disease model
June 30, 2022 — Michelle Parvatiyar
Post-translational modification patterns on β-myosin heavy chain are altered in ischemic and nonischemic human hearts
June 2, 2022 — Alison van der Roost
MYH7 P710R mutation
May 18, 2022 — Ned Debold
The myosin powerstroke and Pi-release, which comes first?
May 5, 2022 — Marcus Hock
Brownian Dynamics simulations of myosin with actin and the effect of mutations and 2 deoxy-ATP
April 21, 2022 — Dr. Dieter Fuerst
Muscle contractile apparatus: a story of supramolecular assembly, dynamics and maintenance
April 7, 2022 — Dr. Weikang Ma
Cardiac myosin filaments are directly regulated by calcium
March 24, 2022 — Dr. Roger Craig
Thoughts, Models and Experiments on the IHM and SRX
February 10, 2022 — Joe Powers
Dr. Joe Powers presents his recently published paper on how the lack of Filamin C impairs cardiac muscle contraction and leads to dilated cardiomyopathy
January 27, 2022 — Thomas Kampourakis
Microscale thermophoresis suggests a new model of regulation of cardiac myosin function via interaction with cardiac myosin-binding protein C