Active Cells, Biochemistry & Physiology Heart, Stroke & Blood

The Importance of Vasculature in Shaping Organogenesis and Influencing Cell Fate Decisions

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Cambridge
Funding Not disclosed
Period Oct 2025 — Sept 2028

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Blood vessels do more than pipe blood around the body—they actively instruct neighbouring tissues on how to grow, what to become, and when to repair themselves. This project tackles a fundamental gap in developmental biology: how embryonic tissues interpret the mechanical forces and oxygen levels generated by the growing vasculature. While scientists know that shear stress from blood flow and tissue tension influence cell behaviour, they do not understand how different tissues—such as the heart and limbs—respond to these cues at specific developmental stages. The same lack of clarity applies to regeneration: whether the signals that guide embryonic growth also drive adult tissue repair is largely unknown. This is fundamental science with no immediate clinical application. However, understanding how blood vessels shape organ formation could eventually inform regenerative medicine—for example, designing therapies that reactivate vascular-derived repair signals after heart attacks or limb injuries. Past discoveries in developmental biology have led to unexpected breakthroughs, such as the use of mechanical cues to engineer lab-grown tissues. A deeper grasp of how vessels orchestrate cell fate decisions may similarly open new routes for repairing damaged organs.

View original technical description
The vasculature plays a crucial role in organogenesis, extending beyond nutrient and oxygen delivery to actively regulating cell fate decisions and morphogenesis through paracrine signalling, structural cues, and mechanical forces. Mechanical stimuli such as shear stress, blood flow, and tissue tension generated by the growing vasculature are increasingly recognised as critical regulators of cellular behaviour and tissue patterning. Oxygen also emerges as a key developmental signal during embryogenesis, where changes in oxygen levels before and after placentation influence tissue growth and lineage specification. Recent work suggests that embryonic tissues exhibit remarkable plasticity in developmental timing, responding to hypoxia in tissue-specific ways. How embryonic tissues achieve such tissue- and stage- specificity to interpret fluctuating oxygen and mechanical cues remains unclear, and the extent to which these mechanisms contribute to regeneration is largely unknown. This project aims to uncover the role of vasculature in shaping cardiac development and peripheral tissues such as the limb by examining the changes in organogenesis with perturbations in vascular development, and to investigate how vascular-derived signals and forces contribute to tissue repair and regeneration following injury.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Eleanor Stephens (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

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Original classification

PhD Studentship (Basic)

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