The primary interest of the Assi lab is to advance the understanding of the natural history and mechanisms of thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection, and the investigation of genetic aortic conditions. The lab closely collaborates with vascular biologists, biomedical engineers, computational genomic scientists, and applied mathematicians.
Novel Mechanisms of CVD
Primary Faculty
The Biwer lab studies female cardiovascular disease with a focus on mechanisms of high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and pregnancy complications. Our approach involves cardiovascular physiology techniques combined with immunological methods and microscopy to understand the contribution of vascular and immune cells to female pathology.
The Chang lab is focused on vascular and kidney tissue engineering for disease modeling and for the development of therapeutics. To accomplish this, the research team leverages both microfluidic and stem cell technologies.
Fernández-Hernando Lab group combines basic biochemical and molecular biology approaches with preclinical and translational studies to unravel fundamental mechanism regulating lipid metabolism and blood vessels in physiological and pathophysiological conditions such as atherosclerosis, obesity, and diabetes. Our studies elucidated the fundamental contribution of non-coding small RNAs (e.g. microRNA-33) in regulating cellular cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.
The Goodwin Lab is interested in understanding the effects of steroid microenvironments on whole-organism phenotypes and how these effects could be translated into novel tissue-specific therapeutic approaches. We also have a particular interest in understanding the connection between cardiovascular and renal diseases including the key cell types that mediate cardiorenal crosstalk and opportunities for cell-specific steroid intervention.
Our passion is to understand blood vessel dysfunction in the setting of critical illness. We are keenly focused on the processes by which endothelial cell junctions break down leading to capillary leak.
The Tellides lab is working on mechanisms of coronary artery and thoracic aorta remodeling in health and disease.
Jenny Zhou lab uses animal model, transcriptomics, cell biology and imaging tools to dissect critical signaling events involved in vascular and lymphatic homeostasis, and to define the mechanisms and therapeutic targets in vascular diseases.
Affiliated Faculty
The Akar Laboratory investigates mechanisms of arrhythmias through the lens of altered biomechanics, metabolism, and electrophysiology. Central to this work is the integration of multidisciplinary approaches to understand how mitochondrial dysfunction, metabolic stress signaling, and heterogeneous mechanical strain patterns contribute to electrical instability in both inherited and acquired heart diseases.
Our lab investigates the role of cyclic nucleotide signaling in the pathogenesis of arterial and venous diseases, focusing on vascular calcification and pathological vascular remodeling. We aim to uncover the molecular mechanisms driving these processes and to develop targeted therapeutic strategies to treat or prevent vascular disorders.
Our goal is to understand how the functions of these channels are altered by processes within the cell. The knowledge of how these channels work will form the background for studies of disease-induced changes in calcium release channel function.
Our lab’s focus is specialized endothelial cells (EC) called tip cells located at the extremities of growing capillary sprouts mediate guided vascular patterning. My group has also shown the selective expression of the VEGF co-receptors Neuropilin (Nrp) in EC of arteries (Nrp1) and of veins/lymphatics (Nrp2).
The Greif lab studies the vasculature, and primarily vascular mural cells (smooth muscle cells and pericytes), as well as the lung in development and disease. Our projects utilize human samples, mouse models and cultured cells to shed light on the pathobiology of and novel treatment strategies for a number of diseases, including pulmonary hypertension, atherosclerosis, elastin aortopathy, lung fibrosis and accelerated aging.
My laboratory studies signaling and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate vascular smooth muscle plasticity and its contributions to cardiovascular pathologies including restenosis, atherosclerosis, and transplant vasculopathy.
My laboratory is dedicated to uncovering the RNA based-mechanisms that enable cells, tissues, and organisms to adapt and thrive in response to environmental changes from birth and throughout life. We focus on specialized "barrier cells" that are sensitive to environmental changes, to investigate these resilience mechanisms and to understand how evolution has equipped organisms to ensure health and survival.
My lab studies how mechanical forces from blood flow and blood pressure shape the development, function and diseases of the vascular system. We use methods that go from single molecule biophysics to analysis of pathways in cultured cells to mouse disease and remodeling models to elucidate molecular and cellular mechanisms and identify new therapeutic targets.
My laboratory is focused on three principal areas: 1) the role of inflammation in chronic diseases including atherosclerosis, pulmonary hypertension, aneurysms, and neurodegenerative diseases; 2) the role of syndecan-2 in selective regulation of immune responses; 3) metabolic control of cell fate transition. All studies are carried out with the view to translation.