The Kirby Lab
Neonatal Perinatal Research Institute
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Margaret L. Kirby, Ph.D.
Group Director
Professor of Pediatrics
and Cell Biology


        

“Nozzle of the bellows.”
Anaximander of Milętus, 560 B.C.

As an undergraduate, I discovered a love of and
innate ability to understand life in four dimensions,
which gave me the basic skill to be a developmental
biologist. Early in my career, I was fortunate to
discover a population of neural crest cells that
migrates to the heart and is essential for normal
heart development. Few scientists have the luck to
cause a paradigm shift, and this turned out to be
just that for heart development. Over the years
our neural crest ablation model has led to the
discovery of the secondary heart field and, most
recently, to a new ventral head/heart organizer.
Our group works closely with a number of other
groups in pursuing these three paradigm shifts.
Although I encourage my lab to be as productive as
possible, my overriding philosophy is that our world
will be a better place if we live up to our own
potential and fulfill our personal and collective goals.




Recent publications

Gurjarpadhye A, Hewett KW, Justus C, Wen X, Stadt H, Kirby ML, Gourdie RG.
2006 Cardiac neural crest ablation inhibits electrical segregation
of conduction system bundles from ventricular myocardium.
Circ Res (in press)

Ward CC, Kirby ML. 2006 The secondary heart field:
Understanding conotruncal defects from a developmental perspective.
Curr. Cardiol. Rev 2:65-69

Clauss SB, Walker DL, Kirby ML, Schimel D, Lo CW. 2005
Patterning of coronary arteries in wildtype and heterozygous
connexin 43 knockout mice: an analysis using microCT imaging (in press)

Hutson MR, Stadt HA, Burch J, Creazzo TL, Kirby ML. 2005
Cardiac outflow alignment is sensitive to levels of FGF8 signaling
in the pharynx. Dev Biol

Sackey FNA, Barbosky LA, Stadt HA, Li YX, Kirby ML. 2005
Sonic hedgehog signaling is disrupted after cardiac neural crest
ablation (in preparation)

Grimes AC, Stadt HA, Shepherd IT, Kirby ML. 2006 Solving an enigma:
The development of the zebrafish bulbus arteriosus.
Cover photo. Dev Biol 290:265-276.

Kugathasan K, Halford M, Farlie P, Bates D, Wilkinson J, Kirby M, Newgreen D,
Stacker S. 2005 The Wnt receptor Ryk is essential for normal cardiac outflow
tract and aortic arch development.

Ward C, Stadt H, Hutson M, Kirby ML. 2005 Ablation of the secondary heart
field leads to tetralogy of Fallot and pulmonary atresia. Dev Biol. 284:72-83

Waldo KL, Hutson MR, Ward CC, Zdanowicz M, Stadt HA, Kumiski D, Abu-Issa R,
Kirby ML. 2005 Secondary heart field contributes myocardium and smooth muscle
to the arterialpole of the developing heart. Dev Biol. 281:78-90.

Waldo KL, Hutson MR, Stadt HA, Zdanowicz M, Zdanowicz J, Kirby ML.
2005 Cardiac neural crest is necessary for normal addition of the
myocardium to the arterial pole from the secondary heart field.
Dev Biol. 281:66-77.

Wilbanks AM, Fralish GB, Kirby ML, Barak LS, Li YX, Caron MG.
Beta-arrestin 2 regulates zebrafish development through the
hedgehog signaling pathway. 2004 Science. 306:2264-7.

Chen JR, Chatterjee B, Meyer R, Yu JC, Borke JL, Isales CM,
Kirby ML, Lo CW, Bollag RJ. 2004 Tbx2 represses expression of
Connexin43 in osteoblastic-like cells. Calcif Tissue Int. 74:561-73.

Abu-Issa R, Waldo K, Kirby ML. 2004 Heart fields: one, two or more?
Dev Biol. 272:281-5.

Kirby ML, Lawson A, Stadt HA, Kumiski DH, Wallis KT, McCraney E,
Waldo KL, Schoenwolf G. 2003 Hensen's node gives rise to the ventral
midline of the foregut: Implications for organizing head and heart
development. Dev Biol 253,175-188.

Hutson MR, Kirby ML. 2003 Neural crest and cardiovascular development:
A 20-year perspective. Embryo Today 69:2-13

Chatterjee B, Li Y-X, Zdanowicz M, Sonntag JM, Chin AJ, Kozolowski DJ,
Valdimarsson G, Kirby ML, Lo CW. 2001 Analysis of Cx43a1 promoter
function in the developing zebrafish embryo. Cell Adhes Commun 8:289-292

Yelbuz TM, Waldo KL, Kumiski DH, Stadt HA, Wolfe RR, Leatherbury LL,
Kirby ML 2002 Shortened outflow tract leads to altered cardiac
looping after neural crest ablation. Circulation 106:504-510.

Kirby ML 2002 Embryogenesis of transposition of the great arteries:
A lesson from the heart. Circ Res 91:87-89 (editorial)

Waldo KL, Kumiski DH, Wallis KT, Platt DH, Hutson M, Kirby ML
2001 Conotruncal myocardium arises from a secondary heart field.
Development 128:3179-3188.

Li Y-X, Zdanowicz M, Young L, Kumiski D, Leatherbury L, Kirby ML 2003
Cardiac neural crest in zebrafish embryos contributes to myocardial cell
lineage and early heart function. Dev Dyn 226(3):540-550.

Li Y-X, Kirby ML. 2003 Coordinated and conserved expression of
alphoid-like repeat and alphoid repeat-tagged coding sequences.
Dev Dyn 228(1):72-81.

Hutson MR, Kirby ML. 2003 Neural crest and cardiovascular development:
A 20-year perspective. Embryo Today 69:2-13

Yutzey KE, Kirby ML 2002 Wherefore heart thou? Embryonic origins of cardiogenic mesoderm.
Dev Dyn 223,307-320.


BOOKS

Kirby ML 2006 Cardiac Development. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

Bockman DE, Kirby ML 1990 (Editors) Embryonic Origins of Defective Heart Development.
Annals NY Acad Sci, Vol. 588, New York, NY.

Favorite data


Neural crest ablation disrupts signaling in the pharynx. In this disrupted environment,
myocardium from the secondary heart field is not incorporated into the outflow tract.
These embryos show labeling in the secondary heart field which over time should move
into the outflow tract. Each row of pictures is a single embryo just after the
injection (left panel) and 48 hours later.
Can you identify the one with neural crest ablation?

These images are from a marking
experiment that shows the
closure of the ventral foregut to
make the foregut pocket. Since
the lines of fluorescent dye are
straight, the ventral foregut
does not close by zipping up but
by craniocaudal elongation.