Postdoctoral Fellow
Massachusetts General Hospital
Joshua Gershlak is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Ott Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Currently, he is working on merging the fields of tissue engineering and development biology to create a working tissue model of heart development through his technique of directed morphogenesis. Prior to his time at MGH, Josh received his PhD from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2018, his Master’s of Science from Tufts University in 2014 and received his Bachelor’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in 2011. His PhD research led Josh to research ways to improve engineered heart tissue for use after a heart attack. More specifically, Josh was able to identify and found ways to use plant tissue to serve as the foundation for the newly engineered heart tissue. Plants were identified due to their inherent vascular network and relatively innate material properties. His PhD work was highly lauded and was featured in many media outlets worldwide including The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, Time Magazine, and Boston Magazine among others.