
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
August 4, 2023
We enjoyed hosting Rivers School interns
Shelby Whitaker and Caroline Chung over the
past 6 weeks.




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.
June 5, 2023
Going away party for Alex Akerberg - he
will be greatly missed.

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!

March 29, 2023
Congratulations to Felicia Wranitz
on receiving a
fundable score
on her NIH
F31 grant
application.
She was previously
awarded an HMS
LaDue that supports
2 exceptional BBS
graduate students
working in
cardiovascular research. Way to go Felicia!
