Rate My Professor Jared Churko

Jared Churko, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at The University of Arizona. He concurrently holds appointments as Associate Professor in the BIO5 Institute, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program, and Physiological Sciences Graduate Interdisciplinary Program. He also directs the University of Arizona iPSC Core and the UA AHA SURF Program. Churko earned his PhD in Anatomy and Cell Biology from Western University in Canada under the supervision of Dr. Dale Laird, Canada Research Chair in Gap Junction Biology. He completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Joseph C. Wu, Chair of the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford University, prior to joining The University of Arizona in April 2018.

The Churko Lab integrates stem cell biology, genetic engineering, bioengineering, and bioinformatics to dissect molecular mechanisms of cardiac development and disease. The laboratory generates transgene-free human induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with heart diseases including arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and bicuspid aortic valve disease. These hiPSCs are differentiated into cardiac cell types such as cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, epicardial cells, and endothelial cells, which are assembled into three-dimensional tissue-engineered constructs to model heart disease. Advanced omics approaches including single-cell RNA-seq, BioID interactome analysis, single-cell Western blotting, and ChIP-seq are employed to identify disease biomarkers and facilitate regenerative medicine therapies through structural bioinformatics and drug development. Key publications include "Minimal Component, Protein-Free, and Cost-effective Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Cardiomyocyte Differentiation" (Current Protocols, 2025), "Atrial Fibrillation Related Titin Truncation Is Associated With Atrial Myopathy in Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Disease Models" (Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine, 2025), "Leiomodin 2 neonatal dilated cardiomyopathy mutation results in altered actin gene signatures and cardiomyocyte dysfunction" (NPJ Regenerative Medicine, 2024), and "Surfaceome mapping of primary human heart cells with CellSurfer uncovers cardiomyocyte surface protein LSMEM2 and proteome dynamics in failing hearts" (Nature Cardiovascular Research, 2023).