Ep. 282: “Whole-Body Regeneration” Featuring Dr. Mansi Srivastava

Dr. Mansi Srivastava is Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Her lab uses distantly related species to study evolution and regeneration. She talks about establishing Hofstenia miamia, or the three-banded panther worm, as a model system. She also discusses her lab’s work on adult stem cell lineage tracing and whole-body regeneration in Hofstenia, as well as her scientific outreach efforts.

Corneal Cell Therapy – Researchers used human iPSC-derived epithelial cell sheets to repair the corneas of patients with limbal stem cell deficiency.

A Vascular Atlas – A vascular cell atlas identifies angiotypic and organotypic characteristics of endothelial and mural cells.

Transcription Factors Before Animal Evolution – Sox and POU transcription factors emerged before the origin of animals.

NODAL Signaling in Embryo Development – NODAL signaling is active in the human blastocyst, but is not required to initiate or maintain the pluripotent epiblast.

Image courtesy of Dr. Mansi Srivastava