Additional Ventures Innovation Fund Single Ventricle Disease Research Program

Jesse Engreitz, PhD
Assistant Professor, Genetics

Study Title: Mapping the Regulatory Wiring of Heart Development to Identify the Genetic Etiology of Single Ventricle Defects

Jesse is currently an Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Genetics and the Children’s Heart Center Basic Sciences and Engineering (BASE) Initiative.

Previously, Jesse was currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and led a research group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the Broad Institute, Jesse developed large-scale CRISPR tools to map enhancer-gene regulation with Eric Lander and Nir Hacohen, and launched the Variants-to-Function (V2F) Initiative to connect genetic disease variants to their molecular and cellular functions. Jesse previously attended Stanford University, where he developed computational algorithms for analyzing gene expression with Russ Altman, and completed his PhD in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, where he studied genome regulation by long noncoding RNAs with Eric Lander and Mitch Guttman. Read more.

Kyle M. Loh, PhD
Assistant Professor, Developmental Biology

Study Title: Understanding Arterial, Vein and Lymphatic Circulatory Dysfunction in Single-Ventricle Disease Using Human Stem Cells 

Kyle received his B.A. from Rutgers University, interned with Bing Lim at the Genome Institute of Singapore, and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University (working with Irving Weissman), with fellowships from the Hertz Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Davidson Institute of Talent Development. He then continued research as the Siebel Investigator at the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine, and later, as an Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology and The Anthony DiGenova Endowed Faculty Scholar. Read more.

Alison Marsden, PhD
Associate Professor, Pediatric (Cardiology); Bioengineering

Study Title: Device for Mechanically Induced Ventricular Growth in Single Ventricle Patients 

Alison Marsden is an associate professor and Wall Center scholar in the departments of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and, by courtesy, Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. From 2007-2015 she was a faculty member in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California San Diego. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University in 1998, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 2005 working with Prof. Parviz Moin. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in Bioengineering and Pediatric Cardiology from 2005-07 working with Charles Taylor and Jeffrey Feinstein.

Her work focuses on the development of numerical methods for cardiovascular blood flow simulation, medical device design, application of optimization to large-scale fluid mechanics simulations, and application of engineering tools to impact patient care in cardiovascular surgery and congenital heart disease. Read more.

Mark Skylar-Scott, PhD
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering

Study Title: A 3D Printed Vascularized Cardiac Biopump to Assist the Fontan Circulation

Mark Skylar-Scott is currently a research fellow in Jennifer Lewis' group in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences as well as the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He obtained his B.A. and M.Eng. degrees from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. in Medical and Electrical Engineering from the Department of Health Science & Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on high-resolution multiphoton microfabrication of capillary networks.

Mark's research focuses on cardiovascular tissue biomanufacturing, seeking to push the complexity and scale at which tissue can be designed and manufactured on demand. By integrating high-throughput culture of designer organoids with new machines and methods for advanced 3D bioprinting, his laboratory seeks to enhance the maturation and function of vascularized cardiac tissues in vitro and in vivo. Read more.