The Burns Lab
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 9, 2024
Congratulations to
Mengmeng Huang
on her NIH NHLBI
K99 award to study
mechanisms of
HLHS in zebrafish
and human
iPSC-derived
cardiomyocytes.
January 15, 2024
Congratulations to Hui-Min Yin and Olivia Weeks on
receipt of
new AHA
postdoctoral
fellowships to
study heart
regeneration
and cardio-
vascular
disease associated with fetal alcohol exposure.
January 2, 2024
We would also like to welcome new fellow Amey Rayrikar to the lab where he will study mechanisms of heart regeneration.
June 24, 2023
Congratulation to Olivia Weeks on her platform presentation at the Research Society on
Alcohol meeting
describing a
zebrafish model
of
cardiovascular
disease
associated
with FASD.
She is a vital
member of our
CIFASD5
group with the
NIAAA.
May 4, 2023
Congratulations to Hui-Min Yin on her
presentation at the annual Weinstein
Cardiovascular Development & Regeneration Conference describing the role of Pontin in cardiomyocyte proliferation. Well done!