Meet the Team

Program Director
Jonathan Schisler

Program Coordinator
Becky Sanchez

The Bahnson Lab

Summer projects will focus on redox dysfunction in arterial disease and developing targeted therapies for vasculature.

The Jensen Lab

Projects will involve examining the molecular response to heart injury and heart failure.

The Dominguez Lab

Alternative splicing is a form of gene regulation that enables a single gene unit to produce multiple mRNA isoforms and thus multiple protein products. Through alternative splicing, mammals can dramatically expand their proteomic diversity enable complex biology from relatively few genes. Over the past few decades, it has become clear that alternative splicing is tightly controlled during development and across tissues with many genes producing different isoforms in a tissue-specific manner. One such tissue, the heart (and muscle), display a unique isoform signature but the mechanisms underlying this regulation remain unclear.  This project will use mouse models that have been engineered to produce tissue-specific isoforms to dissect their function and regulation. The avenues for study include animal work, computational biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology. The Dominguez Lab takes on a multidisciplinary to tackle research questions, enabling students from various backgrounds to contribute to our research efforts. 

The Bautch Lab

Projects will involve looking into blood vessels and how they form, and how diseases, such as cancer, impact that formation.

The Schisler Lab

Summer projects will focus on cardiovascular health, atherosclerosis, and accelerated aging.