REGEN2015: Regenerating the Heart
Ken Poss, Ph.D., James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology at Duke University, is studying a rather unassuming one-and-a-half-inch-long striped fish known as the zebrafish to understand how the animal regenerates its heart, fins, spinal cord, and other tissues. Early in his career Dr. Poss made the discovery that zebrafish have the ability to replace lost heart tissue after as much as 20 percent of the organ is removed. Understanding how this phenomenon occurs in zebrafish has helped break open the field of heart regeneration and has changed the way we think about cardiac repair in humans. Dr. Poss will discuss the pressing need for regenerative therapies of the heart and his laboratory’s work to develop new genetic tools to learn how injury stimulates new growth in the heart and other tissues.