Just Lab

The heart is the first organ to form and function in the mammalian embryo. To generate a fully functional heart, complex processes that involve specification and determination of cardiac progenitor cells, the migration of this cell population to the organ-forming region, the differentiation of the precursor cells to specialized cell types, interaction and signaling within and between tissues, elaborate morphogenetic events and remodeling to form the proper shape of the heart, and finally organ growth and functional maturation have to be orchestrated. Even minor alterations in these events often result in serious cardiac malformations. Although detailed anatomic analysis of the developing heart has already been available for a long time, the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate cardiogenesis are still largely unknown. The identification and characterization of the genetic and molecular underpinnings of heart development is of critical interest since the wide spectrum of congenital cardiovascular malformations found from the prenatal period into adulthood has challenged clinicians and scientists for decades.
Therefore, the main objective of our workgroup “Molecular Cardiology” is to describe by in vitro (cell cultures) and in vivo (zebrafish and mouse) functional genomics approaches the genetic, molecular and cellular events leading to the specification and determination of cardiac precursor cells, their differentiation into specialized cardiac cell types, cardiac growth, maturation and function as well as the regeneration of the heart. The long-term goal of our research is to decipher the complex genetic and molecular networks of heart development and function and to use this information for the development of novel therapeutic treatment options for inherited and acquired heart diseases.