Takashi Mikawa, PhD

Multi-cellular organ systems develop through non-steady state reactions that orchestrate the differentiation and integration of many cell types. Using the cardiovascular and central nervous systems as model organs, our group investigates specific reactions that define cell fate decision, cell size and shape, body axis formation, and faithful delivery of parental genomes to all daughter cells during organ formation. These include mechanisms responsible for: a) establishment of the midline identity along which the tubular organ primordium forms; b) subdivision of neural and non-neural zones within the retina, and segregation of pacemaker from ordinary heart muscle zones within cardiogenic mesoderm; c) diversification within clone units of the brain and heart into glial or neuronal cell fates (brain) or myocytes vs. impulse conducting cell linages (heart); d) formation, recruitment, and in situ patterning of an extra-cardiac progenitor population which establishes the coronary vascular network of the heart; and e) positioning of paternal and maternal chromosome during cell division.