Dr Filipa Simões

Filipa Simões is a Group Leader and British Heart Foundation Intermediate Basic Science Fellow at the Institute of Developmental and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, and a Hugh Price Fellow in Regenerative Medicine at Jesus College. Her research focuses on understanding heart development and repair, particularly how immune cells like macrophages contribute to cardiac regeneration and scarring after injury. Her team uses zebrafish, multicellular cardiac organoids and cutting-edge technologies including genomics, spatial omics and functional assays to study the dynamic cellular interactions in the developing and regenerating heart. She is also Co-Director of the Oxford Organoid Hub, a new initiative developing advanced human in vitro systems for disease modelling and target discovery. After completing her PhD at Oxford studying cardiovascular development in zebrafish, her postdoctoral work revealed paradigm-shifting insights into how macrophages directly contribute to scar formation during heart repair, findings with broad implications for understanding fibrotic disease across organ systems.

Areas of Focus

Simões Lab
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