My research laboratory seeks to identify mechanisms of cardiac progenitor cell commitment and differentiation and their associated diseases when these processes become perturbed during embryonic development. By understanding mechanisms regulating growth and differentiation of heart precursor cells we might one day employ these developmental principles to mediate regeneration in a diseased heart. We currently use both genetically-modified mice and mouse embryonic stem cells to understand the biology of heart development. With the advent of nuclear reprogramming technology, we have also developed in vitro models of cardiovascular diseases (e.g. cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia, metabolic disorder) to discover small molecule modulators of disease phenotype.