Miles Freeman

Year Entered MSTP: 2016

Prior Education

College:	Florida State University
Degree:	B.S. , Biological Science
College:	Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University
Degree:	M.S., Pharmaceutical Science

Student Information

Mentor(s)	MacLellan, Robb MD Faculty Website »
Primary Department	Molecular & Cell Biology (Cardiology)

Doctorate Information

Dissertation Title:	KDM4D Mitigates Cardiac Myocyte Damage In Response To Ischemic Injury
Defense Date:	2020-05-13

Current Positions

Title:	Medical Student
Location:	Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA

Publications »

Current Research

Cardiac Regeneration

Miles Freeman is a student in the Morehouse School of Medicine/University of Washington MSTP pathway. He earned his PhD in the Molecular and Cellular Biology interdisciplinary program in the laboratory of Dr. Robb MacLellan in the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington. The goal of Dr. Freeman’s research is to promote cardiac regeneration in patients after suffering a myocardial infarction. He has pursued a new strategy of coaxing otherwise terminally differentiated cardiac myocytes to re-enter the cell cycle. An epigenetic mechanism limiting cardiac myocyte cycling in adult cardiac myocytes involves trimethylation of lysine-9 of Histone H3 (H3K9me3), a modification associated with repressed chromatin, which silences expression of cell cycle genes and ordinarily restricts heart regeneration following injury. He found that KDM4D, a demethylase targeting H3K9me3, can reactivate cell cycle gene expression and mitigate cardiac myocyte damage in response to ischemic injury. He is currently completing the clinical phase of medical school at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.