Laurie A. Boyer, PhD
Research Highlights
Investigating the gene regulatory mechanisms that coordinate tissue specific gene expression during heart development.
Research:
The Boyer lab investigates how complex circuits of genes and proteins are coordinated at the molecular level to produce robust developmental outcomes and has set the stage for understanding how faulty regulation leads to disease. We focus particular attention on dissecting the gene regulatory mechanisms that control lineage commitment during heart development and congenital heart defects; and applying this knowledge toward engineering cardiac tissues. As part of this work, we are investigating the regulatory logic that programs tissue specific gene expression during cardiac lineage commitment and we are developing tools that enables us to reprogram this logic in response to cardiac injury – opening new possibilities for stimulating adult cardiac regeneration. We are also working to develop 3D cardiac organoids as a models system to study mammalian heart development in a dish and to develop a robust platform for phenotype, drug, and toxicology screening.
Areas I Research
Biography:
Laurie A. Boyer earned her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She then joined the Whitehead Institute as a postdoctoral fellow in both the Jaenisch and Young labs where she pioneered the development of high-throughput platforms for genome wide analysis of transcription factors and chromatin regulators in stem cells, opening the field of stem cell genomics. In 2007, Boyer joined the Biology Department and in 2015, she was also appointed as an Associate Professor of Biological Engineering.