The long-term goal of my laboratory is to define the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cardiac development and homeostasis. These mechanisms are important in our understanding of the etiology of cardiac diseases as alterations in these processes can manifest as a variety of congenital and/or acquired cardiac diseases. We have established an essential role for cardiac contraction-responsive endocardial derived signaling in regulating cardiomyocyte delamination for chamber maturation. In order to fully understand the signaling interactions between the endocardial cells (and other nonmyocytes in the hearts) and cardiomyocytes, current projects within the laboratory are focused on unraveling the nonmyocytes diversity within the heart, deciphering the mechanisms of non-myocyte – myocyte communications, and determining the roles of these communications in health and disease.