Chad Cowan

Department of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Richard B. Simches Research Center, Rm 4.234
185 Cambridge St.
Boston, MA 02114
Tel: (617) 643-3569
Fax: (617) 724-2662
Email: ccowan1@partners.org

Our research is focused on understanding the contribution of environmental and genetic factors in the development of disease. The relative impact of these factors to pathogenesis is not well understood for many disorders. Complex interactions between genes and the environment have made it particularly difficult to develop accurate models for the sporadic and so called multifactorial forms of human disease. To further complicate studies, biopsied tissue containing the affected cell type is often extremely limited. Moreover, the developmental or pathological events leading to the disease have usually occurred long before diagnosis. While animal models exist for several diseases, they usually represent a rare, ‘single-hit’, genetic form of a disease that may not completely or accurately reflect the human disorder nor recapitulate the influence of environmental factors in the development of the pathological state. As a result, it has been extremely difficult to discern the contribution of either genetic or environmental factors in the development of the more common complex diseases, such as type-1 diabetes, Parkinsons and cardiovascular disease. To help overcome these technical difficulties and expand our understanding of these and other complex diseases we are building in vitro models using human embryonic stem cells, in which genetic and developmental aspects of the disease can be controlled.

References:

• Cowan C.A., Atienza J., Melton, D.A. and Eggan, K.: Nuclear Reprogramming of Somatic Cells After Fusion with Human Embryonic Stem Cells. Science. August 26, 2005.
• Wang S., Cowan C.A., Chipperfield H. and Powers R. D.: Gene expression in the pre-implantation embryo: in-vitro developmental changes. Reproductive Biomedicine Online, May, 2005.
• Anneren C, Cowan C.A. and Melton D.A.: The Src family of tyrosine kinases is important for embryonic stem cell self-renewal. Journal of Biological Chemistry, May 17, 2004.
• Cowan, C.A., Klimanskaya, I., McMahon, J., Atienza, J., Witmyer, J., Zucker, J.P., Wang, S., Morton, C.C., McMahon, A.P., Powers, D. and Melton, D.A.: Derivation of embryonic stem-cell lines from human blastocysts. New England Journal of Medicine, 350(13),1353-6, 2004.