Guiding 3D Vascular Fate and Assembly
ONLINE CBE SEMINAR
All Fall 2020 CBE Seminars will be hosted online via Zoom. RSVP to receive zoom link by emailing info@bioengineering.ucsb.edu.
Zoom will open after the host has joined at the start of each seminar. You can ask questions through the chat forum and by raising your "hand" and the speaker will call on you.
Speaker
Sharon Gerecht, Ph.D.
Director, Institute for NanoBio Technology
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
Vascular differentiation and formation (morphogenesis) takes place in an intricate milieu. This unique microenvironment is situated throughout the body in diverse types of healthy tissues, yet it seems to activates/ inhibits similar mechanisms of the microvasculature. Two parameters of this microenvironment seem critical for blood vessel growth and stabilization: (i) the extracellular matrix, which provides critical support for vascular cell adhesion, proliferation, migration, and morphogenesis, and (ii) low oxygen concentrations (hypoxia), which is a critical factor promoting vascularization during embryonic development and tumor growth. In this talk I will present our recent efforts to understand how these physicochemical cues and downstream signaling pathways impact vascular fate and assembly from progenitors and pluripotent stem cells.
BIO
Dr. Gerecht is professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and director of The Institute for NanoBioTechnology at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gerecht’s research group studies the interactions between cells and their microenvironments with the long-term goal of engineering artificial cell microenvironments capable of guiding homeostasis or regeneration. Dr. Gerecht is the recipient of the Allan C. Davis Medal from the Maryland Academy of Sciences (2008), the North America Vascular Biology Organization Junior Investigator Award (2009), the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation (2009-2011), the National Scientist Development Award (2008-2012) and Established Investigator Award (2014-2019) both from the American Heart Association, the National Science Foundation CAREER award (2011-2016), the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Heart award (2014-2017), and the Johns Hopkins University Inaugural President’s Frontier Award (2015). Dr. Gerecht is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2016) and elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019). Dr. Gerecht is the author of more than 150 papers, book chapters, and patents in her field and a co-founder of Gemstone Biotherapeutics, LLC, a spin-off company based on technologies developed in her lab, focusing on wound healing.
