Danyal Hami

I got my undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in May 2004, and I worked with E. coli RNA processing for my last four semesters there. I am currently a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Margaret Kirby. My research focuses on the genetic basis of cardiac arterial pole development of the zebrafish heart. Our lab has already shown that the structure of the zebrafish arterial pole is homologous to that of avian and mammalian hearts, which consists of smooth muscle cranial to distal myocardium. These two components are derived from the secondary heart field, which is added to the heart tube cranially to eventually form the proximal portion of the outflow tract. Various zebrafish mutants have also shown that some genes involved in heart development have evolutionarily conserved roles in other model vertebrates. My project focuses on establishing the presence and role of the secondary heart field in zebrafish using the unique markers we have identified for the arterial pole in this model organism. I am extending this work into the study of zebrafish mutants relevant to arterial pole development.

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