Practical Applications Derived from Basic Developmental Studies

Abstract

Abstract Each day in the United States approximately 80 children are born with congenital heart disease. Each day the parents of a newborn are told that their baby has a problem that may require medications or surgery, or that their baby may not live. Each and every day parents respond with the same simple question, “Why?” This is the most basic of questions asked at a time of incomprehensible fear. Our quest as developmental biologists, scientists, and physicians is to answer this extraordinarily simple and complex question by defining the mechanisms that regulate normal cardiovascular morphogenesis and the events that produce altered developmental trajectories. The goal of this chapter is to provide the reader with a brief overview of the clinical spectrum of congenital cardiovascular malformations, with several recent examples of molecular explanations for specific defects, and then provide a general discussion of the fundamental relationship between cardiovascular structure and function that is present from the onset of the heart beat throughout life.