Biology Department Faculty
Juan Manuel González-Rosa
Assistant Professor
Juan Manuel González-Rosa
Ph.D.
Contact
Higgins Hall 345
Telephone: (617)-552-0804
Education
- Ph.D. Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
- M.Sc., Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
- B.S., Universidad de Málaga
Research Interests
Heart development and regeneration; zebrafish genetics; role of fibrosis, inflammation, and polyploidy in regeneration
Department
Research
Millions of patients die annually from diseases that affect organs with limited regenerative capacity such as the heart. In contrast, zebrafish regenerate most organs naturally after injury. The goal of our research is to identify barriers to heart regeneration using the zebrafish as a model organism. Our lab is particularly interested in understanding how polyploidization (the increase in DNA content associated with the maturation of certain cell types) reduces the regenerative competence of cardiomyocytes. Our ultimate goal is to make fundamental discoveries that could be later used to design strategies to regenerate the human heart after myocardial infarction.
Dr. Gonzalez-Rosa received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autonoma (Madrid) and the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research in 2013. During his thesis work under the supervision of Dr. Nadia Mercader, he pioneered the development of a new cryoinjury model to study zebrafish heart regeneration. In October 2013, Dr. Gonzalez-Rosa joined the laboratory of Caroline and Geoffrey Burns at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As a postdoctoral researcher, his research was supported by a Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellowship from EMBO and the Funds for Medical Discovery Award from ECOR-MGH. In June 2019, Dr. Gonzalez-Rosa joined the CVRC faculty after receiving the Career Development Award from the American Heart Association.