Overall Research Interests

Dr Hwa’s overall interests have been in translational studies (from bench to bedside) in the broad area of cardiovascular disease. The Hwa lab studies have transitioned across many fields from fundamental protein structure function, to molecular signaling, to cellular dysfunction, and to clinical disease. The goal is to fearlessly study platelets with multi-dimensional approaches to develop new mechanistic insights and therapeutic strategies in platelet related diseases.

Platelets are exquisitely sensitive to blood stressors (e.g. high glucose or inflammation) and can launch a rapid response, either by themselves or by recruiting other cells. They contain hundreds of substances including growth factors, cytokines which are released to influence other cells. Every single one of these are needed under particular stress environments. The key now is to uncover the individual stress responses and how to modulate them. Platelets are in essence the “vigilantes” of the blood stream. Stream. Translational studies bridging basic and clinical science is the path to more effective personalized and targeted therapeutics.

A focus of our laboratory is to investigate platelet heterogeneity across different populations and diseases. This includes sickle cell disease and pediatric sepsis. We are utilizing high-dimensional single-cell technologies to characterize distinct functional subsets of platelets and define their mechanistic contributions to inflammatory and thrombotic vascular diseases.

We investigate how platelet proteostasis shapes platelet functional phenotype, with a particular focus on the unfolded protein response. The work examines how these mechanisms contribute to cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders, with the goal of identifying new therapeutic strategies beyond current antiplatelet approaches.

We are also interested in platelet mediated immune functions. We are exploring the molecular basis of platelet-dysfunction and platelet -T cell crosstalk and its pathological consequences through human and mouse studies.