The Srivastava lab is focused on the gene networks that guide the development of the heart, seeking to understand how aberrations in these pathways can cause congenital heart disease, and how they can use this knowledge to generate new cardiac cells to repair heart damage. One powerful approach they use is creating models of heart disease in a dish by reprogramming human cells from patients carrying mutations in cardiac developmental genes, editing them with CRISPR technology and analyzing changes at the single cell level. This has led them to discover perturbations in pivotal genetic pathways that contribute to disease, and identified the nodes that can be therapeutically targeted to restore heart cells to normal function.

Disease Areas

Congenital Heart Disease
Heart Failure
Cardiac Valve Disease
Aging

Areas of Expertise

Developmental Biology
Human Genetics
Regenerative Medicine
CRISPR and Gene Editing
Stem Cells and iPS Cells
Working in the Srivastava lab

Lab Focus

Modeling human cardiovascular diseases using single-cell approaches in animal models and induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with genetically defined disease.
Investigating how combinations of human mutations or polymorphisms in cardiac developmental genes predispose to disease.
Identifying targetable signaling, transcriptional, and translational nodes that can be manipulated for regenerative medicine or other therapeutic approaches to directly reprogram non-myocytes into new cardiomyocytes for cardiac regeneration.

Research Impact

Srivastava’s lab leveraged the lessons of cardiac developmental biology to directly reprogram resident non-muscle cells in the mouse heart into cells that function like heart muscle cells, effectively regenerating heart muscle after damage. This new paradigm of harnessing endogenous cells to regenerate organs may be broadly applicable to other organs.

Similarly, the team used knowledge of developmental cell-cycle regulators to unlock the post-mitotic state in adult cardiomyocytes and stimulate enough stable cell division to regenerate cardiac muscle in the adult. They also revealed the mechanisms underlying human disease caused by mutations in cardiac developmental regulators using human iPS cells, and used this knowledge to screen for novel therapeutic approaches to disease.

 

Lab Members

Gabriel Avillion, MS
Rotation Student
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Ava Bandel
Research Associate I
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Abigail Brand
Research Associate I
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Cesar Castro
Research Technologist III
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Mauro Costa, PhD
Staff Research Scientist II
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Matthew Dominguez
Student Intern
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Vivek Durai
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Vivek Durai, MD, PhD
Clinical Fellow
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Nick Elder
Collaborator
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Karena Essex
Senior Administrative Specialist
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Feng Gao, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Yu Huang, MS
Research Scientist
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Patrick Hurley
Collaborator
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Johnny Hwang
Visiting Scientist
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Kathy Ivey, PhD
Visiting Scientist
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Naman Jain
Visiting Researcher
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Shyam Jinagal, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Wesley Kwong, MA
Research Associate I
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Adrienne Lam
Research Associate I
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Clara Lee
Visiting Researcher
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Feiya Li, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Vaibhav Mangipudy
Collaborator
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Bonnie Maven, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Alex Merriman
Graduate Student
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Alexander Merriman, PhD
Visiting Scientist
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Tomo Nishino, MD, PhD
Collaborator
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Arun Padmanabhan, MD, PhD
Visiting Scientist
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Angelo Pelonero, MS
Bioinformatician II
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Nikolaos Poulis, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Jeeves Ranade, PhD
Collaborator
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Nandhini Sadagopan, MS
Visiting Researcher
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Bethany Taylor, MPA
Chief of Staff
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Vasanth Vedantham, MD, PhD
Collaborator
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Grace Yang
Visiting Researcher
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Lin Ye, PhD
Staff Research Scientist II
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Victoria Yu
Research Associate II
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Ping Zhou, MD
Research Scientist
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