Jennifer Davis, PhD

Assistant Professor, Bioengineering & Pathology

Director, UW Center for Cardiovascular Biology

Associate Director, UW Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine

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Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular and Cardiovascular Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Ph.D. Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2007

M.A. Exercise & Nutritional Science, San Diego State University, 2001

B.S. Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1996

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Dr. Davis, a cellular and molecular physiologist, uses genetic engineering to study the biology of cardiac wound healing and remodeling. Specifically, she investigates the role of scar tissue in repair processes and how it affects heart muscle function and prevents regeneration. Dr. Davis identified a key set of molecular signals that activate scar-forming myofibroblast cells, and she has successfully engineered them to either promote or block scarring, both at the cellular level and in genetically modified mice. Dr. Davis earned her Ph.D. in Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan, followed by postdoctoral training at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Heart Institute. In 2014, she won the Louis N. & Arnold M. Katz Basic Science Research Prize for Young Investigators from the American Heart Association.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Darrian Bugg

Darrian joined the Davis Lab in 2015 as a tech, recently completed her PhD in the M3D program, and is now a postdoc in the Davis Lab. She is interested in understanding the wound healing response in the heart post myocardial infarction with respect to the myocyte, fibroblast and the underlying matrix. By probing molecular pathways that underlie the transdifferentiation process of a quiescent fibroblast into a matrix secreting myofibroblast in the heart post injury, her work will help us better understand this transformation and look for ways in which it can be altered. Ultimately she hopes to utilize a basic biological approach to reduce the fibrotic response seen in cardiac wound healing and combine it with regenerative therapies to reduce cardiac dysfunction over time.

 

PhD Students

Emily Olszewski

Emily is using three-dimensional imaging to characterize fibroblast morphology and anatomical niches in the heart. She is interested in how cardiac fibroblast physiology and the biochemical and mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix affect cardiac vascular structure and function.

Ross Bretherton

Ross is a Bioengineering PhD student jointly mentored by Jen Davis and Cole DeForest. He is interested in using engineered hydrogels to recapitulate the mechanical and biochemical cues of diseased matrix in the context of cardiomyopathies.

Logan Bailey

Logan is an MD/PhD student in the UW Medical Scientist Training Program. His work focuses on elucidating the mechanisms controlling cell fate and differentiation with the hopes of leveraging this knowledge to inform novel regenerative medicine therapies.

Abby Nagle

Abby is interested in using stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to learn how heart cells develop and maintain the contractile machinery needed for the heart to pump. She is currently studying the mechanotransduction of environmental cues that mediate sarcomere assembly, and how this process is disrupted in disease. In her spare time she enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons and rooting for her favorite college football team.

Kalen Robeson

Kalen works as a co-mentored Ph.D. student in the Regnier and Davis labs developing novel tools to treat heart disease. With a focus on tissue engineering and gene therapy, Kalen is working to translate emerging ideas and techniques in bioengineering into medical treatments and therapies. This work focuses on using dATP as a small molecule therapy to enhance cardiomyocyte contraction and modulate cardiac myofibroblast transdifferentiation.

Bella Reichardt

Bella is a Bioengineering PhD Student. She is interested in understanding the plasticity of the myocardium throughout disease progression and is working to define the link between epigenetic-transcription patterns and mechanical disequilibrium in hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathies.

Lab Staff

Ambika Gunaje – Lab Manager

Amy Martinson – Research Scientist

Undergraduates

Issac Flores – Senior

Renee Gibson

Cherry Leung

Dessirée Ortaç

An Vu

Past Trainees

Kristin Zabrecky, DVM

Clinical Veterinarian – Washington University St. Louis

Danny El-Nachef, PhD

Senior Scientist – Sana Biotechnology

Peter Kim, PhD

Scientist – Seattle Children’s Hospital

Peter’s research focused on investigating mechanoregulation of myofibroblast fate and function. Utilizing BioMEMs techniques, he recapitulated in vivo myocardial scar ECM topographies for assessing the topographic regulation of myofibroblast transdifferentiation.

Christina Jones, PhD

Kevin Shi, MS

Divya Lakshmanan – BioE Undergraduate

Bioengineering Master’s Student – UCSD

Kylie Beach – Microbiology Undergraduate

Research Scientist – Bermingham-McDonogh Lab, UW

Anna Reese – Visiting Undergraduate, UCLA

Kacie Yokoro