Heritable Thoracic Aortic Disease Lab
Heads
Prof. Julie De Backer Prof. Patrick Sips
Research
Mission
- Improve the diagnosis, risk stratification, and treatment of patients with heritable thoracic aortic disease (HTAD)
- Approach from different angles, integrating patient data and clinical studies with experiments in animal models, including both mice and zebrafish, to study mechanisms of disease and find new therapeutic targets
- Aim to achieve more precise clinical management for HTAD with more reliable classification of genetic variants and a better understanding of genetic modifiers of disease
Interests
- Thoracic aorta
- Aneurysm and dissection
- Cardiovascular physiology
- Mouse and zebrafish models
- Patient data
- Genetic engineering
- Advanced imaging
- High-throughput screening
Current projects
- Study mechanisms of human cardiomyopathy in Marfan syndrome.
- Clinical and molecular determinants of aging in congenital heart disease.
- Use mouse models to study mechanisms leading to dissection and rupture of the thoracic aortic wall.
- Investigate sex differences in the cardiovascular manifestations of HTAD.
- Perform unbiased drug screening in a zebrafish model of Marfan syndrome to identify new potential therapeutic compounds.
- Investigate the contribution of immune cells to aortic wall damage in Marfan syndrome.
Team
- Laura Muiño Mosquera
- Karo De Rycke - PhD student
- Marina Horvat - PhD student
- Simon D’hulst - PhD student
- Tijs Tournoy - PhD student
- Lisa Caboor - lab technician
- Griet De Smet - lab technician
- Maarten Dhaese - PhD student
