The Jacot Lab for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine
Lab Values
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Everybody in the lab looks out for the safety and well-being of all lab members and is willing to speak out or help when needed.
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We aim for transparency in all decisions and data/publications, while maintaining confidentiality as necessary. All raw data will be available and any member of the lab is free to ask why a decision is made.
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Trained bioengineers are the most important product of the lab. We all help all lab members to get to the next stage of their career and to learn and grow as a bioengineer
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We believe in the inclusion of minority groups and strive to provide equal support to all lab members.
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We recognize that our laboratory research is funded by taxpayers and donations for medical research and we all strive to advance the goals of those institutes and organizations.
Mission Statement
We focus on pediatric regenerative medicine, with core expertise in cardiac tissue, biomaterial interactions, and amniotic fluid and induced pluripotent human stem cells. We aim to have a lab culture that prepares members to be future leaders in their fields; maintains a joyful, respectful, and productive environment; and attracts the top students in the world for graduate student and postdoc opportunities.
LABORATORY-GROWN HEART TISSUE FOR SURGICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURAL DEFECTS IN NEWBORNS
Approximately 80% of structural heart defects are detected in routine ultrasounds. Our goal is to isolate stem cells from amniotic fluid before birth and create heart tissue from those cells that can be used to reconstruct the heart with the babies own cells after birth.
MECHANICS OF HEART DEVELOPMENT
Laboratory grown heart tissue can be used to understand the control of proliferation, migration, and force generation that creates heart structure, and the ways that these are altered in genetic conditions that predispose infants to structural heart defects, such as Duschene Muscular Dystrophy, Down syndrome, and notch mutations that can lead to hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
BIOMANUFACTURING OF HEART TISSUE
Many transformational regenerative and tissue engineering approaches have shown efficacy in preclinical models, but translation to scaled up manufacturing and clinical application hinder these technologies. We are investigating methods of scaffold composition and manufacturing, bioreactors, and timed drug release to aid in the consistency, cost, and ease of biomanufacturing of heart tissue.
