During embryogenesis, the heart needs to form a specific three-dimensional shape or a child will be born with a defective heart. Srivastava and his colleagues hope that by better understanding the molecular pathways involved in normal heart development, it will possible to improve treatments for both congenital and adult onset heart disease. In his first talk, Srivastava describes studies from his lab and others which use animal models and induced pluripotent stem cells to elucidate many of the gene networks that determine cardiac cell fate. iPS cells have been particularly important for identifying a mutation in the human transcription factor GATA4.  By understanding the importance of GATA4 during heart development, it has been possible to develop a model that explains how cardiac specific genes can be activated while genes for other cell types are repressed.