Victoria Mascetti

Victoria graduated in 2016 and has moved to Stanford University where she is a postdoctoral research fellow in Prof Irving Weissman's team.

The following text relates to Victoria's PhD project at the University of Cambridge.

Supervisor: Professor Roger Pedersen

Title: The role of HAND1 and HAND2 during human pluripotent cell differentiation into cardiac progenitors

Abstract: Human embryonic stem cells provide a model system for human cardiac differentiation and therefore provide valuable insights into human cardiovascular development. The proposed research aims to investigate the role of the cardiac transcription factors HAND1 and HAND2 in the generation of human cardiac progenitors and their role in Congenital Heart Disease.

Congenital Heart Disease is caused by the aberrant formation, expansion, and lineage-specific differentiation of defined subsets of cardiac progenitors. Thus resulting in unfaithful cardiovascular development and ultimately structural defects in the heart.

Pivotally, elucidating the role of HAND1 and HAND2 in cardiogenesis has the unique potential to impact upon translational research as well as developmental studies.