Assistant Professor
Higgins Hall 345
Telephone: (617)-552-0804
Email: juanmanuel.gonzalezrosa@bc.edu
Heart development and regeneration; zebrafish genetics; role of fibrosis, inflammation, and polyploidy in regeneration
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.
1) [BC] Keeley S*, Fernández-Lajarín M*, Bergemann D, John N**, Parrott L**, Andrea BE, González-Rosa JM (2024). Optimization of methods for rapid and robust generation of cardiomyocyte-specific crispants in zebrafish using the cardiodeleter system. bioRxiv; doi: 10.1101/2024.09.27.615502. (*Keeley and Fernández-Lajarín, co-first authors).
2) [BC] Sande-Melon M, Bergemann D, Fernández-Lajarín M, González-Rosa JM*, Cox AG*. Development of a hepatic cryoinjury model to study liver regeneration. Development. 2024 Jul 8:dev.203124. PMID: 38975841. (* González-Rosa and Cox, co-corresponding).
3) [BC] Akam EA, Bergemann D, Ridley SJ, To S, Andrea B, Moon B, Ma H, Zhou Y, Aguirre A, Caravan P, Gonzalez-Rosa JM, Sosnovik DE (2024). Dynamics of Collagen Oxidation and Cross Linking in Regenerating and Irreversibly Infarcted Myocardium. Nat Commun. 2024 Jun 10;15(1):4648. PMID: 38858347.
4) Bhavsar H, Robinson Z, Benson M, Getachew F, González-Rosa JM, Lafontant PJ. (2024) Lectins As Effective Tools in the Study of the Biliary Network and the Parenchymal Architecture of the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Liver. Zebrafish Apr;21(2):177-180. PMID: 38621207
5) Da Silveira Cavalcante L, Lopera Higuita M, González-Rosa JM, Marques B, To S, Pendexter CA, Cronin SEJ, Gopinathan K, de Vries RJ, Ellett F, Uygun K, Langenau DM, Toner M, Tessier SN. (2023). Zebrafish as a high throughput model for organ preservation and transplantation research. FASEB J. Oct;37(10):e23187. PMID: 37718489.
6) Li H, Trager LE, Liu X, Hastings MH, Xiao C, Guerra J, To S, Li G, Yeri A, Rodosthenous R, Silverman MG, Das S, Ambardekar AV, Bristow M, Gonzalez-Rosa JM, Rosenzweig A (2022). lncExACT1 and DCHS2 Regulate Physiological and Pathological Cardiac Growth. Circulation, Apr 19;145(16):1218-1233. PMID: 35114812.
7) González-Rosa JM. (2022) Zebrafish Models of Cardiac Disease: From Fortuitous Mutants to Precision Medicine. Circ Res 10;130(12):1803-1826. PMID: 35679360.