Overview

Normal functioning of the heart and lungs is essential to human health. Several clinically-important disease states such as systemic and pulmonary hypertension, coronary artery disease, sepsis, ARDS, COPD, asthma result from or cause abnormal structure and function of cardiac and pulmonary elements. Disease states as well as drugs used in the practice of anesthesiology and critical care medicine exert significant effects (sometimes deleterious) on respiratory and cardiac systems. Indeed, even abnormalities of the heart and lungs during development can lead to significant morbidity and mortality (e.g. bronchopulmonary dysplasia, pediatric pulmonary hypertension). In the Cardiac and Pulmonary Cell Biology laboratory, we study signal transduction mechanisms that regulate the structure and function of cardiac muscle, and of airway and pulmonary artery smooth muscles. The major focus is on intracellular calcium, which is an essential trigger for several physiologically important processes, not the least of which is contraction of cardiac and smooth muscles. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate intracellular calcium in normal tissues allows us to extend our studies to clinically-relevant problems such as inflammation, hypertension and heart disease. The long term goal of these studies to help formulate more effective and safer therapies for use in the operating room and intensive care medicine. The laboratory uses a variety of state-of-the-art techniques to study single cells and tissues, including fluorescence microscopy, real-time calcium and other intravital imaging, muscle mechanics, immunohistochemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. Furthermore, we collaborate with other laboratories with similar interests (Cell Imaging and Physiology; Director: Gary C. Sieck; Smooth Muscle Physiology; Director: David O. Warner; Vascular Molecular Biology; Director: Zvonimir Katusic)