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overview
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The Zhou laboratory studies factors and mechanisms that control heart and coronary vessel development to understand the pathogenesis of congenital heart disease and to gain insights into potential repairing mechanisms to combat both congenital and acquired heart diseases. Our research uses mice, mouse and human stem cells as model systems. We apply an integrated approach of genetics, developmental, molecular and systems biology as well as advanced single cell technologies and CRISPR gene editing to address three major questions: (1) How individual cardiac cells and lineages are specified, maintained, or diversified during heart and coronary vessel development, disease, aging or regeneration (Wu et al. Circ Res 2011, Wu et al. Cell 2012, Lu et al. Nat Commun 2022, Lu et al. Dev Cell 2023)? (2) How cell-cell, or cell-environment communications are modulated to control cardiac functions under these conditions (Wang et al. Eur Heart J 2015, Wang et al. Nat Commun 2017, Lu et al. Nat Cell Biol 2021)? (3) How fetal cardiac gene program is controlled during development and reactivated in the diseased or failing heart (Wang et al. Cardiovasc Res 2017, Lu et al. Circ Res 2022)?
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