Guo Huang, PhD
The regenerative potential in the animal kingdom displays striking divergence across ontogeny and phylogeny. For example, heart regeneration is remarkably robust in adult zebrafish and newborn mice while very limited in adult mammals. This presents a particular problem for patients with a heart attack who suffer from loss of millions of heart muscle cells and life-threatening functional deterioration of the heart.
Our current research focuses on cardiac regeneration and repair in adult zebrafish, neonatal and adult mice, with an emphasis on the pathways that regulate resident stem cell activation and cardiac muscle cell proliferation, and with innovative and integrated approaches in engineering, single cell analysis, advanced imaging microscopy and genome manipulation technology.
Our recent findings of organ regeneration in development and evolution yield unprecedented insights into the link of regeneration to cancer, metabolism, and aging, and suggest the existence of non-model organisms and rare human individuals with extreme physiology and capability that await exciting biology discovery.
Interests: Digit and heart development and regeneration