Joshua Wythe, PhD

I joined the faculty in the Departments of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine in July of 2023 as an Associate Professor and member of the Cardiovascular Research Center, the UVA Cancer Center, and the Brain, Immunology and Glia (BIG) center at UVA School of Medicine.

Our lab studies human diseases affecting the cardiovascular system by generating novel animal models of human disease, using both zebrafish and mice, with a specific focus on the cerebrovasculature, as well as the developing vasculature (including the lymphatic vessels) and heart. We then attempt to identify novel biological vulnerabilities in these disease models for vetting therapeutic candidates to ameliorate or reverse the disease in the hopes that some of our candidate pathways or genes may be suitable targets for treating patients (as occurred for MEK inhibition in brain arteriovenous malformations).

Prior to joining UVA, I ran a laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, Texas from 2014 to 2023. I joined BCM in 2014 as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) after a joint recruitment effort through the Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) and the Departments of Integrative Physiology and Neurosurgery. In 2020 I was promoted to Associate Professor and awarded tenure at BCM.

Before going to BCM, I was at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at UCSF as a Staff Scientist (2012-2014) and Research Scientist (2011-2012). There I was awarded a 4 year Scientist Development Grant (National Affiliate) from the American Heart Association to pursue a project on the transcriptional regulation of endothelial differentiation into arterial and venous fates.

Prior to that I completed my postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Benoit Bruneau, the head of the Gladstone Cardiovascular Institute at UCSF, and world lead in transcriptional regulation of early cardiac patterning and function. In Benoit’s lab I studied the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of cardiovascular development and disease, with a particular focus on Tbx5 and cardiac lineages, microRNAs, and Slit-Robo signaling.

I credit my graduate advisor at the University of Utah, Dr. Dean Y. Li (Executive Vice President of Merck Research Laboratories), and an awesome postdoc in his lab at the time who took me under her wing, Dr. Lisa D. Urness, for my interest in cardiovascular development and disease.  My graduate work focused on Elastin signaling in smooth muscle cells, Slit/Robo-mediated regulation of angiogenesis, and the molecular regulation of cardiac contraction in zebrafish. This work wouldn't have been possible without the amazingly strong developmental biology program at the U of U (particularly the Grunwald, as well as Yost and late Chi-Bin Chien, laboratories) and our collaborator at Mass General, Calum MacRae (now at the Brigham and Women's Hospital).

When I’m not at the lab, or thinking about science, you’ll likely find me riding my bike (or more likely the Peleton these days), playing with our son, taking a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains (Charlottesville is beautiful!), reading some fiction, or cooking.

My papers:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/joshua.wythe.1/bibliography/public/