Deepak Srivastava

Dr. Deepak Srivastava is the President of Gladstone Institutes, the Wilma and Adeline Pirag Distinguished Professor in Pediatric Developmental Cardiology and Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is also Director of the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. He is also the Baker Institute Scholar for Biomedical Research Policy at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Srivastava has made distinguished contributions in the fields of congenital heart disease, cardiac development and stem cell biology. Srivastava's studies focus on applying modern genetic and stem cell technologies to identify the causes of human heart disease. He discovered the genetic basis for cardiac septal and valve defects, and revealed complex signaling, transcriptional, and translational networks that regulate progenitor cells to adopt a cardiac cell fate. His laboratory continues to study the molecular events regulating early and late developmental decisions that instruct progenitor cells to become cardiac cells-and subsequently fashion a functioning heart. Drawing on his expertise in developmental biology, Srivastava and his lab have reprogrammed connective tissue in the heart directly into beating heart cells-a process that may help regenerate damaged heart muscle. Understanding the causes of heart disease and applying knowledge of these cardiac development pathways may be useful in preventing congenital defects and devising new therapies to treat acquired heart disease, particularly with cardiac-specific differentiation of embryonic stem cells. His work has led to a potential therapeutic for heart attacks (now in clinical trials). Srivastava has received E. Mead Johnson Award for the most outstanding research related to childhood disease. His articles appear in Cell, Nature, and Science.