Dr Dee Domingo is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Neurovascular Research Laboratory (Neural Crest and Cardiac Development Group) at the Centre for Cancer Biology. Her research investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which Neural Crest Cells influence the developing heart, with a particular interest in how disruption to these processes drives Congenital Heart Defects including Pulmonary Stenosis.
 
Neural Crest Cells play a critical role in guiding the remodelling of the pharyngeal arch arteries – a series of embryonic blood vessels that give rise to the great vessels of the heart, including the aorta and pulmonary artery. Dr Domingo’s work centres on how Neural Crest Cell-Specific Notch signalling uniquely drives the remodelling of the 6th pharyngeal arch artery (remodels into the pulmonary artery) and the pulmonary valves.
 
Using conditional knockout mouse models, she examines how loss of Notch signalling in Neural Crest Cells produces clinically relevant stenotic phenotypes, smooth muscle loss and dysregulated cell signalling and differentiation. Dr Domingo’s Research is underpinned by a suite of advanced imaging and molecular techniques, including whole embryo light sheet fluorescence microscopy, 3D vascular modelling, fetal echocardiography, immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry.