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Zebrafish Heart Development and Regeneration

Cardiovascular diseases represent the number one cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, affecting a broad spectrum of ages from babies that are born with congenital heart defects to adults that suffer acute myocardial infarctions and/or develop congestive heart failure over time. Our research program is motivated by the simple assumption that we can use the zebrafish as a model organism to understand how the cardiovascular system is established during development and how it efficiently regenerates following injury during adulthood.Specifically, we are: (1) creating zebrafish models of CHDs to implicate human genetic variants as causal for disease pathogenesis and to uncover mechanism of action, and (2) identifying critical factors regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation with the long-term goal of coaxing human hearts towards regeneration instead of scarring. 

LAB NEWS

March, 2025

Congratulations to Olivia Weeks on her

presentations at

the International

Fetal

Alcohol

Spectrum

Disorders

conference in

Seattle, WA. She

is doing amazing

work to

understand

how alcohol

exposure during

fetal life affects

heart development and disease. 

aba7de57-9da4-4bb3-98d8-ec42930f077b.JPG

March, 2025

Congratulations to Felicia Wrantiz 

on her 

presentation

at the

Developmental

and

Regenerative

Biology

retreat where

she talked

about how

Reptin

regulates

cardiomyocyte

proliferation. 

3790d5d7-036e-4539-9053-0fd8936ce208.JPG

April, 2025

Selfie after successful sorts!

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