IMB Friday Seminar - Cardiovascular Development and Disease: discovery science to translational applications

Dr Nathan Palpant
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
The University of Queensland

Abstract: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and new therapeutics are required to address growing public health demands. Our work aims to expand treatment options for cardiovascular diseases through interdisciplinary research, drawing knowledge gained about developmental biology to inform new therapeutic approaches. In this seminar, I will present three vignettes from fundamental discovery to translational applications based on our current work studying cardiac stem cell differentiation at single cell resolution, utilizing epigenetic signatures to identify genes governing cell identity, and discovering novel cardioprotective peptides for the ischemic heart.

Bio: Dr Palpant established his lab at IMB in November 2015 after PhD training at the University of Michigan and a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Washington. He is recipient of the International Society for Heart Research Young Investigator Award and a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow. His lab utilizes human pluripotent stem cells as a model system for studying cardiovascular development coupled with studies in genomics, epigenetics, tissue engineering, and animal physiology to address significant issues in cardiovascular medicine. The primary strategy for his lab is to leverage discoveries in cardiac developmental genomics and physiology to inform novel translational strategies for cardiovascular therapeutics, disease modelling, and drug discovery.