Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017
9:00 – 10:00 am
133 Chrysler

Sharon Gerecht, PhD
Professor and Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar ChemBE & DMES Director, the Institute for NanoBioTechnology
Johns Hopkins University

http://gerechtlab.johnshopkins.edu

“Exploiting Physicochemical Cues to Guide Vasculature Differentiation and Assembly”

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 (ECM), 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.