Michael Wagner

Michael Wagner is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Downstate Medical Center. His work bridges developmental cardiology and molecular biology, focusing on signal transduction, cardiac stem cells, and transcriptional regulation in heart development.

Research Interests: Developmental cardiology, fetal cardiac stem cells, epithelial-to-mesenchyme transformation (EMT), retinoic acid biology, and transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in cardiac hypertrophy and heart disease. His studies explore HMGA2's role in cardiac progenitor cell proliferation and its parallels in cancer stem cell biology.

Publication Trends: Recent work (2007-2009) investigates signal transduction in heart development, transcription elongation factors in hypertrophy, and retinoid signaling in neural patterning. Earlier studies examine PKC isoforms in neuromuscular junctions and CLP-1 gene functions in cardiac lineage specification.