Welcome to The Yuan Lab
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Jason X.-J. Yuan, MD/PhD Principal Investigator, Institute for Personalized Respiratory Medicine Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology Director, UIC Program in Pulmonary Vascular Disease & Right Heart Function |
The research interests in Dr. Yuan's lab center on pulmonary vascular physiology and pathophysiology, ion channel electrophysiology, and pathogenic mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease. The ongoing research projects include studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction, the pathogenic and therapeutic mechanisms of pulmonary arterial hypertension, the pathogenic role of Kv channels and TRPC channels in pulmonary vascular remodeling, the genetic variances associated with the susceptibility to develop idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, and the functional role of ion channels in stem cell proliferation and differentiation. Dr. Yuan's lab utilizes vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells isolated from mice, rats, and human subjects (patients undergoing lung transplantation and lobectomy, pulmonary endarterectomy) and employs combined techniques of electrophysiology (patch clamp), digital imaging fluorescence microscopy, cell and molecular biology to study the roles of ion channels and intracellular calcium in regulating vasomotor tone, and pulmonary vascular smooth muscle proliferation and apoptosis. An on-going goal is to determine the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in different forms of pulmonary hypertension and search for new therapeutic approaches for pulmonary vascular disease.