Page 20 - CBAC Newsletter 2014

colleagues and mentors here at Washington Universi- I enjoy spending time and sharing new experiences with
ty who are working together toward common goals, and my husband and two children, Cassie (10) and Noah (6).
who are helping to guide me during the next phase of my Having lived in the Northeast our entire lives, we have
career. greatly enjoyed getting to know St. Louis over the past
year. We have found St. Louis to be a nice balance of
When I first saw the complex His-Purkine network within having enough fun things to do, but small enough that
the heart, I immediately became fascinated. How is this life is manageable for two physician-scientists with young
network patterned and electrically programmed? Which children. We have also enjoyed getting to know the peo-
diseases are associated with improper conduction sys- ple here, both at home and at work. My other passions
tem patterning or electrical programming? How can we outside of work include playing basketball and traveling.
utilize our current knowledge to better understand and
treat patients suffering from conduction diseases? We I have enjoyed interacting and collaborating with the
are now beginning to understand that the same transcrip- outstanding members of CBAC, and have found the
tional networks that program the conduction system also seminar series to be critically important for driving
regulate and maintain cellular electrophysiology broadly our collective science forward. I think the inclusive
in the adult. I want to utilize knowledge and expertise philosophy of CBAC, where experts in diverse areas of re-
from across diverse fields and apply it to the treatment of search are welcomed, has led to important discoveries
human disease. I hope that over my lifetime we can do and will continue to result in many more important dis-
more to bridge the gap between the discoveries in animal coveries by this community in the years to come.
models and validation of novel therapies in clinical trials.

I believe my most important research achievement
is yet to come, and will be discovered by talented
individuals working in my laboratory.

Studying development has allowed me to see the amaz-
ing plasticity of cells, including terminally differentiated
cells such as cardiomyocytes. A main focus of my re-
search program is to decipher the transcriptional and
epigenetic mechanisms that regulate cell lineage specifi-
cation of the diverse subtypes of cardiomyocytes such as
nodal, Purkinje, atrial, and ventricular in both mouse and
human systems. Once we understand the critical regula- Stacey Rentschler and her laboratory members
tory networks involved in programming these diverse cell
lineages, it may be possible to leverage these networks
to allow interconversion of cell types in the adult heart
for regenerative medicine approaches. In addition, since
reactivation of many developmental signaling pathways
occurs in adult injury responses, including the Notch and
Wnt pathways, I hope to gain a better understanding for
the role of Notch and Wnt in post-infarction remodeling,
regeneration and arrhythmias.

I am most proud of the fact that I have a talented,
supportive husband and that together we have two won-
derful children who continually amaze us and keep our
lives interesting.

15 | CBAC Center Heartbeat