"Unlocking the Secrets of Cardiac Fibroblast Biology: Their Role in Tissue Homeostasis and Disease"

Speaker:

Jennifer Davis, Ph.D., M.A.
Associate Professor of Pathology & Bioengineering
Interim Director, The Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine
Director, The Center for Cardiovascular Biology
University of Washington

About Jennifer Davis:

Dr. Davis holds a bachelor's degree in kinesiology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a master's degree in exercise and nutritional science from San Diego State University. She then earned her doctoral degree in molecular and integrative physiology from the University of Michigan. She performed her postdoctoral training at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the Department of Molecular and Cardiovascular Biology. In recognition for her work in the basic cardiovascular sciences she was awarded the Louis N. & Arnold M. Katz Basic Science Research Prize for Young Investigators from the American Heart Association (2014).

The Davis Lab utilizes in vitro and in vivo genetic engineering approaches to elucidate the cellular and molecular underpinnings of cardiac wound healing and the fibrotic response. Fibrosis and scarring is a feature of virtually every mode of cardiac disease that is both a hemodynamic burden and a strong prognostic indicator of heart failure. Due to the limited regenerative capacity of the myocardium, the heart’s response to injury is to permanently scar creating a myocardial environment that is altogether more hostile to regeneration. Through the use of genome-wide functional screen for cellular differentiation she has started to identify novel molecular and mechanical signaling networks that program cells to create fibrotic tissue.

Her ultimate objective is to leverage these networks as a means of developing interventions directed at enhancing repair and/or mitigating the fibrotic response. As many of these signaling networks are likely part of the global injury response, the Davis Lab can utilize these genetic engineering approaches to further investigate the injury response in other tissues including skeletal muscle, lung, skin, and even tumor metastasis.