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Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
B.S., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 1989
M.A., Columbia University, New York, 1992
Ph.D., Columbia University, New York, 1996
Postdoc, California Institute of Technology, 1996-2002
Vascular remodeling and heart morphogenesis in early vertebrate embryos
My laboratory uses a multi-disciplinary approach to study the role of fluid-derived mechanical forces in vascular remodeling and heart morphogenesis in early vertebrate embryos. We have recently developed methods for time-lapse, confocal imaging of rapid blood flow and heart mechanics using vital fluorescent protein reporters. With these methods we are studying the response to changes in mechanical stress in mouse and zebrafish models, taking advantage of the wealth of mutant animals.
Selected Publications
Larina IV, Sudheendran N, Ghosn M, Jiang J, Cable A, Larin KV, Dickinson ME (2008) Live imaging of blood flow in mammalian embryos using Doppler swept-source optical coherence tomography. Journal of Biomedical Optics 13:060506.
Poche RA, Larina IV, Scott ML, Saik JE, West JL, Dickinson ME (2009) The Flk1-myr::mCherry mouse as a useful reporter to characterize multiple aspects of ocular blood vessel development and disease. Developmental Dynamics 238:2318-2326.
Udan RS, Dickinson ME (2010) Imaging mouse embryonic development. Methods in Enzymology 476:329-349.
Poche RA, Saik JE, West JL, Dickinson ME (2010) The mouse cornea as a transplantation site for live imaging of engineered tissue constructs. Cold Spring Harbor Protocols 2010:pdb prot5416.
Chao WT, Ashcroft F, Daquinag AC, Vadakkan T, Wei Z, Zhang P, Dickinson ME, Kunz J (2010) Type I phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinase beta regulates focal adhesion disassembly by promoting beta1 integrin endocytosis. Molecular and Cellular Biology 30:4463-4479.
Asprer JS, Lee B, Wu CS, Vadakkan T, Dickinson ME, Lu HC, Lee SK (2011) LMO4 functions as a co-activator of neurogenin 2 in the developing cortex. Development 138:2823-2832.
Larina IV, Larin KV, Justice MJ, Dickinson ME (2011) Optical Coherence Tomography for live imaging of mammalian development. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 21:579-584.
Culver JC, Hoffmann JC, Poche RA, Slater JH, West JL, Dickinson ME (2012) Three-dimensional biomimetic patterning in hydrogels to guide cellular organization. Advanced Materials 24:2344-2348.
Larina IV, Larin KV, Dickinson ME, Liebling M (2012) Sequential Turning Acquisition and Reconstruction (STAR) method for four-dimensional imaging of cyclically moving structures. Biomedical Optics Express 3:650-660.
Poche RA, Sharma R, Garcia MD, Wada AM, Nolte MJ, Udan RS, Paik JH, DePinho RA, Bartlett JD, Dickinson ME (2012) Transcription factor FoxO1 is essential for enamel biomineralization. PLoS One 7:e30357.
Udan RS, Dickinson ME (2012) The ebb and flow of lymphatic valve formation. Developmental Cell 22:242-243.
Contact Information
Mary Dickinson, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
Baylor College of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza BCM 335
Houston, Texas 77030, U.S.A.
Lab website
Tel: (713) 798-2104
Fax: (713) 798-3475
E-mail: