Basic Science
Molecular and Cellular Cardiology
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Thomas Quertermous: Strategies are employed to clone and characterize genes that regulate cardiovascular development, endothelial cell differentiation, and other fundamental processes such as gene expression. Click here for more information on the ADVANCE.
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Ching-Pin Chang: My laboratory focuses on the mechanisms of cardiovascular development, particularly how the three major types of cardiac cells (endocardial, myocardial and epicardial cells) and neural crest cells interact with each other to generate heart tissues. We are interested in the transcriptional and signaling events that coordinate their interactions and assembly into heart tissues. The long-term goal is to understand the developmental mechanisms that control tissue formation and recapitulate the developmental processes for therapeutic or regenerative purposes. Furthermore, we have generated mouse models of cardiomyopathy and models that allow us to study the repair mechanisms of vascular injury in adults. We aim to apply lessons learned from our developmental studies to investigate the mechanisms of adult disease. Visit my laboratory page to learn more about my research.
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John Cooke: The Cooke laboratory is focused on Vascular Regeneration: To restore vessel health; to reverse vascular aging; to build new blood vessels. We have a translational research effort from molecule to man, focused on endothelial function, angiogenesis, and vascular progenitors. Our aim is to rapidly transfer these basic research insights into clinical investigation, and ultimately, diagnostics and therapeutics. In particular, we are interested in the roles of the NO synthase and nAChR pathways in progenitor and vascular cell function, particularly with respect to angiogenic processes. At the clinical level, we are testing agents to treat or reverse peripheral arterial disease, and are developing novel biomarkers for detection of peripheral arterial disease and for predicting cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. More information can be found at the Cooke Laboratory page.
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Joseph C. Wu: My laboratory focuses on cardiac stem cell therapy, gene therapy, tissue engineering, and molecular imaging. The major areas of research involve differentiation of human ES cells into cardiac and endothelial cells; using novel non-viral vectors to enhance transfection efficiency in vivo; incorporating bioscaffolds to create myocardial tissue patches; and development of novel molecular imaging platforms. For more information about research opportunities, please visit my Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford lab page or view my profile.
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Stan Rockson: Characterization of the biochemical and cellular responses to impaired lymphatic function; development and molecular characterization of the strategies for therapeutic lymphangiogenesis; imaging of immune traffic and its role in lymphatic disorders.
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William T. Clusin: Cardiac ischemia; especially the measurement of cytosolic calcium during ischemia and the role of cytosolic calcium in the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias. Other interests: cellular electrophysiology; cardiovascular pharmacology, excitation-contraction coupling. Dr. Clusin has a recent review article (PDF) on mechanisms of calcium transient and action potential alternans in cardiac cells and tissues.