Cardiac Fibrosis and Heart Failure: Cause or Effect?

1. Fibrosis and Heart Failure - Cause or Effect?.- 2. Fibroblast Activation in the Infarcted Myocardium.- 3. Mechanical and Matrix Regulation of Valvular Fibrosis.- 4. Bone Marrow-Derived Progenitor Cells, micro-RNA and Fibrosis.- 5. The Stressful Life of Cardiac Myofibroblasts.- 6. Pathogenic Origins of Fibrosis in the Hypertensive Heart Disease that Accompanies Aldosteronism.- 7. Embryological origin of valve progenitor cells.- 8. Diverse cellular origins of cardiac fibroblasts.- 9. Non-Canonical Regulation of TGF-beta1 Signaling: A Role for Ski/Sno and YAP/TAZ.- 10. Molecular mechanisms of smooth muscle and fibroblast phenotype conversions in the failing heart.- 11. Current and future strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac fibrosis.- 12. Remodelling of the cardiac extracellular matrix: Role of collagen degradation and accumulation in pathogenesis of heart failure.- 13. Matrix Metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9): The Middle-Man of Post Myocardial Infarction Extracellular Matrix Remodelling.- 14. Collagen processing and its role in Fibrosis.- 15. Mechanisms of Cardiac Fibrosis.- 16. Mathematical Simulations of Sphingosine-1-Phosphate Actions on Mammalian Ventricular Myofibroblasts and Myocytes.- 17. Extracellular Matrix and Cardiac Disease: Surgical and Scientific Perspectives.- 18. The Role of Neurohumoral Activation in Cardiac Fibrosis and Heart Failure.- 19. Natriuretic peptides: critical regulators of cardiac fibroblasts and the extracellular matrix in the heart.- 20. Cardiac Tissue Engineering for the Treatment of Heart Failure Post-Infarction.- 21. Mechanisms of Cardiac Valve Failure and the Development of Tissue Engineered Heart Valves.

Dr. Jeffrey Wigle is an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. His research focuses on the transcriptional pathways involved in regulating the growth and development of the cardiovascular system. He has characterized a number of transcription factors that are critical for the development of the lymphatic vasculature and the phenoconversion of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts.   He is currently studying the transcriptional feedback loops that determine the fibroblastic phenotype.

Dr. Ian M.C. Dixon is a Professor of Physiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.  His research addresses heart failure following myocardial infarction and the contributing role of dysfunctional extracellular matrix in these hearts.  He is also interested in mechanisms of fibroblast phenotype regulation, cardiac fibroblast Smad protein signalling as well as other signalling proteins that may oppose the fibrogenic influence of TGF-b1 in health and disease. He has been engaged over the past 24 years in multidisciplinary research in cardiovascular matrix biology.