Deborah K. Lieu, PhD, Senior Scientific Consultant

Dr. Lieu has served as a senior scientific consultant for Novoheart since 2017. She is currently an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at University of California, Davis. She received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from UC Davis, studying the effects of shear stress on vascular endothelial cells under the mentorship of Dr. Abdul Barakat.

Her research on stem cells started under the guidance of her first postdoctoral mentor, Dr. Eric Kurzrock, which investigated adult urothelial stem cells for tissue engineering. Under the mentorship of Dr. Ronald Li, she switched her research focus to human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes during her second postdoctoral training. Human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes continue to be the focus of her academic research at UC Davis.

Her academic laboratory has been funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) since 2013. She has over 50 peer-reviewed publications and three approved U.S. patents.