Yang Lab

Primary focus:

1. Therapeutic hypothermia in septic shock and acute MI. Topical neck cooling without a change in core body temperature exerts anti-inflammatory responses. One of the possible mechanisms underlying the effect of topical neck cooling is activation of vagus nerve, especially vago-cardiac and vago-splenic axis.
2. Spleen mediates acute myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. HMGB1 and cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from ischemically-injured cardiomyocytes are released into the blood stream during reperfusion and activate RAGE and TLR9 of splenic leukocytes, which causes an exodus of activated leukocytes from the spleen to home in on the previously ischemic myocardium and induce reperfusion injury.
3. Acute hyperglycemia exacerbates myocardial injury by activating splenic leukocytes. Acute hyperglycemia directly activates splenic neutrophils by increasing their formyl peptide receptor (FPR) expression and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Activated splenic neutrophils home to the ischemically-injured myocardium and eventually exacerbates myocardial infarct size. Pulsed ultrasound of the spleen or neck modulates the spleen into an anti-inflammatory phenotype and abolished hyperglycemic exacerbation of myocardial infarction by activating vagal nerve..
4. Abdominal wall hernia: Affects 2-4% general population. Our research seeks to standardize the surgical repair and to define risk factors for hernia recurrence.

Zequan Yang, MD, Professor

Di Wu, MS, Lab Specialist