Mentor Areas
The goal of our lab is to regenerate tissue for children and infants with congenital heart defects and lung disease. However, a thorough understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms governing normal development of the heart and lung is critical. As such, we are applying novel ex vivo modeling, advanced imaging and image processing of static and live tissue, single cell and population RNA sequencing, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, and transgenic mouse modeling to unravel mechanisms of cardiopulmonary development. Subsequently, we use our novel discovery of important fetal programs and apply this to cardiopulmonary tissue regeneration.
Description:
Projects will vary, and interested students should contact us to discuss possibilities. In general, the project could be very basic with the student acquiring basic molecular biology skills such PCR/qPCR and cell culture to full participation in projects studying the development of the mouse pulmonary vasculature and epithelium. We currently have projects available that are examining cell fate of the cardiopulmonary progenitor cell population in development and disease, epigenetic regulation of cell fate in early lung development, regulation of alveolar epithelial cell plasticity in postnatal development and disease, and development and regeneration of the pulmonary vasculature.
Preferred Qualifications
We will happily teach you the basic and more complicated laboratory skills. Will need to be comfortable with handling mice, and some knowledge of biology is required.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.