Cardiovascular diseases

About the project

About the Project Group Leader: Professor Sanjay Sinha ( Sinha Group ) Research Summary Blood vessel diseases cause heart attacks, strokes and aortic aneurysms (a ballooning then tearing of the main artery in the body). The Sinha Group uses human stem cells to generate smooth muscle cells, one of the main cell types that make up the blood vessel wall. If they use skin cells from patients with vascular diseases to make stem cells then the smooth muscle cells from those (induced) stem cells will have the same abnormalities as in the patient, thus providing a way to generate a "disease-in-a-dish". With these and other approaches they are trying to understand how blood vessels become diseased and trying to find new treatments for these diseases. They are also developing ways to transplant our stem cell generated cells to reverse the damage caused by a heart attack. Research Focus The Sinha lab’s overall aim is to develop new treatments for cardiovascular diseases, using their expertise in cardiovascular development, regeneration and disease modelling. They have pioneered the generation of embryonic lineage-specific vascular smooth muscle cells from human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells, using chemically defined conditions. They have utilised this system to model genetically triggered aortopathies, such as Marfan and Loeys-Dietz syndromes. These “disease-in-a-dish” models are being used to understand the pathobiology of these conditions and to screen for new treatments. Additionally, they are they are generating a detailed multiomic and spatial atlas of human heart development and modelling key developmental niches and events in vitro using hESC-based 3D system to define key regulatory mechanisms in humans. Finally, they are testing the regenerative potential of hESC-derived epicardium and other cardiovascular cell types for heart repair after myocardial infarction, either through direct injection or in the form of an in vitro generated myocardial “patch”. To Apply: We encourage prospective PhD students to reach out directly to Professor Sinha, sinha@stemcells.cam.ac.uk to discuss potential projects and supervision. Applicants must secure the support of a Supervisor within a laboratory before submitting an application . Please contact the project Supervisor(s) to discuss potential supervision, proposed research project and funding options, which should then be used to write your formal application. Applications will be submitted to the ' PhD in Stem Cell Biology ' and full course details can be found at https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/blscpdscp

Research areas