A group of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Texas Heart Institute and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston reveals today in the journal Genes & Development new insights into the recently discovered healing capacity of the heart involving the Hippo cellular pathway. The group previously reported that inactivating the Hippo pathway in the adult murine heart promoted cardiac muscle regeneration after injury, opening the possibility of developing promising heart failure therapies. In this study, the researchers discovered that inactivating the Hippo pathway in cardiac fibroblasts, non-muscle heart cells intertwined with cardiac muscle cells, promoted cardiac fibrosis and adversely effected cardiac function Continue reading →

When Hossein Tavassoli first told his mother that he was researching heart disease, she responded with But, youre an engineer... She was right, of course Hosseins undergraduate degree was in material engineering but at the time, he found it difficult to explain the intersections between biology and engineering. Now, not only is he a nanoengineer working in a tissue regeneration lab, but he is also an avid science communicator Continue reading →

Abstract The control of stem and progenitor cell fate is emerging as a compelling urgency for regenerative medicine. Here, we propose a innovative strategy to gain optical control of endothelial colony-forming cell fate, which represents the only known truly endothelial precursor showing robust in vitro proliferation and overwhelming vessel formation in vivo Continue reading →