Dr. Cohen graduated cum laud from Lebanon Valley College before completing both his graduate and postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Cohen's research is largely focused on understanding how intercellular signaling directs cardiac morphogenesis and how defect in this signaling contribute to human disease. Congenital heart defects are present in approximately 1% of newborn babies, 10% of stillborn fetuses and responsible for nearly 6% of deaths among children under one year of age. Furthermore heart disease is the leading cause of death among adults in the Western world. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying cardiac development will aid in the discovery of new methods to detect and treat congenital heart defects. Moreover since aberrant signaling by embryonic pathways is often associated with disease, this same information will also aid in the discovery of novel treatments for adult cardiomyopathy. Many of these new treatments are likely to involve using stem/progenitor cells to replace damaged cardiac tissues. However our ability to differentiate multi-potent stem cells into functional cardiomyocytes is still limited and further insight into the molecular cues that guide cardiac development will be necessary to reach the full potential of regenerative medicine.

• Miller MF, Cohen ED, Baggs JE, Lu MM, Hogenesch JB, Morrisey EE. Wnt ligands signal in a cooperative manner to promote foregut organogenesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Sep 18; 109(38):15348-53.
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• Cohen ED, Miller MF, Wang Z, Moon RT, Morrisey EE. Wnt5a and Wnt11 are essential for second heart field progenitor development. Development. 2012 Jun; 139(11):1931-40.
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• Shen D, Li J, Lepore JJ, Anderson TJ, Sinha S, Lin AY, Cheng L, Cohen ED, Roberts JD, Dedhar S, Parmacek MS, Gerszten RE. Aortic aneurysm generation in mice with targeted deletion of integrin-linked kinase in vascular smooth muscle cells. Circ Res. 2011 Sep 2; 109(6):616-28.
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• Goss AM, Tian Y, Cheng L, Yang J, Zhou D, Cohen ED, Morrisey EE. Wnt2 signaling is necessary and sufficient to activate the airway smooth muscle program in the lung by regulating myocardin/Mrtf-B and Fgf10 expression. Dev Biol. 2011 Aug 15; 356(2):541-52.
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• Yuan L, Wang T, Liu F, Cohen ED, Patel VV. An evaluation of transmitral and pulmonary venous Doppler indices for assessing murine left ventricular diastolic function. J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2010 Aug; 23(8):887-97.
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• Tian Y, Yuan L, Goss AM, Wang T, Yang J, Lepore JJ, Zhou D, Schwartz RJ, Patel V, Cohen ED, Morrisey EE. Characterization and in vivo pharmacological rescue of a Wnt2-Gata6 pathway required for cardiac inflow tract development. Dev Cell. 2010 Feb 16; 18(2):275-87.
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• Fohlmeister JF, Cohen ED, Newman EA. Mechanisms and distribution of ion channels in retinal ganglion cells: using temperature as an independent variable. J Neurophysiol. 2010 Mar; 103(3):1357-74.
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• Tian Y, Cohen ED, Morrisey EE. The importance of Wnt signaling in cardiovascular development. Pediatr Cardiol. 2010 Apr; 31(3):342-8.
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• Cohen ED, Ihida-Stansbury K, Lu MM, Panettieri RA, Jones PL, Morrisey EE. Wnt signaling regulates smooth muscle precursor development in the mouse lung via a tenascin C/PDGFR pathway. J Clin Invest. 2009 Sep; 119(9):2538-49.
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• Goss AM, Tian Y, Tsukiyama T, Cohen ED, Zhou D, Lu MM, Yamaguchi TP, Morrisey EE. Wnt2/2b and beta-catenin signaling are necessary and sufficient to specify lung progenitors in the foregut. Dev Cell. 2009 Aug; 17(2):290-8.
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• Cohen ED. Effects of high-level pulse train stimulation on retinal function. J Neural Eng. 2009 Jun; 6(3):035005.
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• Zhang Y, Goss AM, Cohen ED, Kadzik R, Lepore JJ, Muthukumaraswamy K, Yang J, DeMayo FJ, Whitsett JA, Parmacek MS, Morrisey EE. A Gata6-Wnt pathway required for epithelial stem cell development and airway regeneration. Nat Genet. 2008 Jul; 40(7):862-70.
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• Cohen ED, Morrisey EE. A house with many rooms: how the heart got its chambers with foxn4. Genes Dev. 2008 Mar 15; 22(6):706-10.
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• Cohen ED, Tian Y, Morrisey EE. Wnt signaling: an essential regulator of cardiovascular differentiation, morphogenesis and progenitor self-renewal. Development. 2008 Mar; 135(5):789-98.
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• Cohen ED, Wang Z, Lepore JJ, Lu MM, Taketo MM, Epstein DJ, Morrisey EE. Wnt/beta-catenin signaling promotes expansion of Isl-1-positive cardiac progenitor cells through regulation of FGF signaling. J Clin Invest. 2007 Jul; 117(7):1794-804.
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• Cohen ED. Prosthetic interfaces with the visual system: biological issues. J Neural Eng. 2007 Jun; 4(2):R14-31.
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• Cohen ED. Safety and effectiveness considerations for clinical studies of visual prosthetic devices. J Neural Eng. 2007 Mar; 4(1):S124-9.
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• Wong KY, Cohen ED, Dowling JE. Retinal bipolar cell input mechanisms in giant danio. II. Patch-clamp analysis of on bipolar cells. J Neurophysiol. 2005 Jan; 93(1):94-107.
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• Mangrum WI, Dowling JE, Cohen ED. A morphological classification of ganglion cells in the zebrafish retina. Vis Neurosci. 2002 Nov-Dec; 19(6):767-79.
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• Cohen ED, Mariol MC, Wallace RM, Weyers J, Kamberov YG, Pradel J, Wilder EL. DWnt4 regulates cell movement and focal adhesion kinase during Drosophila ovarian morphogenesis. Dev Cell. 2002 Apr; 2(4):437-48.
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• Wei JY, Jin X, Cohen ED, Daw NW, Barnstable CJ. cGMP-induced presynaptic depression and postsynaptic facilitation at glutamatergic synapses in visual cortex. Brain Res. 2002 Feb 8; 927(1):42-54.
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• Janson K, Cohen ED, Wilder EL. Expression of DWnt6, DWnt10, and DFz4 during Drosophila development. Mech Dev. 2001 May; 103(1-2):117-20.
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