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Uncovering novel regulators of coronary arterial differentiation

  • 1 May 2021 to 31 December 2021
  • Awards: Pump-priming Awards

The survival of the heart muscle after a heart attack is dependent on a decent blood supply. This requires either making new blood vessels, or adapting existing ones (e.g. turning small connecting vessels into coronary arteries). It would be helpful if we were able to manipulate this process to improve the supply of blood to the heart when needed. However, our understanding of these processes is not yet complete. In this project, we are studying how coronary arteries are formed in the developing heart, with the aim of developing new therapies to manipulate more, and better, vessel growth in damaged heart muscles.

Image title: A new arterial enhancer drives GFP expression specifically in the zebrafish artery

zebrafish artery made visible by making a green fluorescent protein under the control of a novel enhancer© Dr Sarah De Val