Abstract:

Cardiovascular disease–including heart attacks and congenital heart defects is the world\’s leading cause of death. Heart failure alone afflicts more than 20 million people around the world. When heart muscle is damaged, the body is unable to repair the dead or injured cells. Currently, the only possible cure for heart failure is a heart transplant.

Inspired by fish or salamanders that have a remarkable ability to repair their own injured organs, scientists have been trying for decades to discover a way to convince human adult cells to divide and regenerate tissue in a similar way. A team has finally developed the first reliable method to make adult cells divide and repair hearts damaged by heart attacks, at least in animal models.

Dr. Srivastava is working on networks that regulate progenitor cells to adopt a cardiac cell fate and subsequently fashion a functioning heart. He has leveraged this knowledge to reprogram fibroblasts directly into cardiomyocyte-like cells for regenerative purposes.

Biography:

Dr. Deepak Srivastava is the President of the Gladstone Institutes, the Younger Family Director and Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, and Director of the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology at Gladstone. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Dr. Srivastava is also a Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, and Biochemistry & Biophysics, and is the Wilma and Adeline Pirag Distinguished Professor in Pediatric Developmental Cardiology.

Dr. Srivastava received his B.S. from Rice University, M.D. from University of Texas, trained in pediatrics at UCSF, and in pediatric cardiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Srivastava is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.