Ms Christina Vagena-Pantoula (She/Her)

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering

Research Assistant

Contact

Location

Bessemer BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

Summary

Christina is a PhD student within the Department of Bioengineering supervised by Dr Julien Vermot. Her research project places mechanical forces in the focus of effectors of heart development and integrates newly defined mechanotransduction pathways into the preexisting knowledge on signalling pathways involved in valve morphogenesis. She combines live imaging techniques, cell biology and genetic analysis to characterise the physical stimuli and molecular mechanisms that specify cell responses to flow forces during embryogenesis using zebrafish as a model organism.

Prior to this position, Christina served as a Core Genomics, Histology and Microbiology departmental technician, leading the management of the relevant Core Facilities within the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College. She also worked as a research assistant at the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College, investigating the molecular basis of pathogenicity of novel oomycete pathogens in Caenorhabditis elegans. Christina studied Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece and obtained a Master's degree in Translational Research in Biomedicine.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

Pantazis P, Pantazis P, Yaganoglu S, et al.Pantazis P, Pantazis P, Yaganoglu S, Konstantinos K, Vagena-Pantoula C, Jülich D, Gaub B, Welling M, Lopes T, Lachowski D, Tang SS, Del Rio Hernandez A, Salem V, Müller D, Holley S, Vermot J, Shi J, Helassa N, Török K close, 2023, Highly specific and non-invasive imaging of Piezo1-dependent activity across scales using GenEPi, Nature Communications, Vol:14, ISSN:2041-1723, Pages:1-16

Steib E, Vagena-Pantoula C, Vermot J, 2023, TissUExM protocol for ultrastructure expansion microscopy of zebrafish larvae and mouse embryos, Star Protocols, Vol:4, ISSN:2666-1667

Vignes H, Vagena-Pantoula C, Vermot J, 2022, Mechanical control of tissue shape: Cell-extrinsic and -intrinsic mechanisms join forces to regulate morphogenesis, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, Vol:130, ISSN:1084-9521, Pages:45-55

Vignes H, Vagena-Pantoula C, Prakash M, et al.Vignes H, Vagena-Pantoula C, Prakash M, Fukui H, Norden C, Mochizuki N, Jug F, Vermot J close, 2022, Extracellular mechanical forces drive endocardial cell volume decrease during zebrafish cardiac valve morphogenesis, Developmental Cell, Vol:57, ISSN:1534-5807, Pages:598-+

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