1. What is your lab’s long-term/big-picture research goal?
The big-picture goal of my lab is to find out how the heart becomes weaker under long-term conditions such as obesity and diabetes. The major focus of my lab is how metabolism goes wrong to make less energy for the heart to pump blood consistently. We hope that a better understanding will allow us to develop drugs to reverse heart disease in the future.
2. What is your training/scientific background?
I obtained my PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. I followed my interest in metabolism and had my postdoctoral training in a lab specialized in heart metabolism at the University of Washington, Seattle (Dr. Rong Tian’s lab). I joined OMRF as an Assistant Member in 2019 after my postdoctoral training.
3. What is the goal of your OCASCR project?
Our OCASCR project aims to understand how obese patients have a higher chance of having irregular heart rhythms, which increases the risk for these patients to have heart failure, stroke, or sudden death. This project focuses on mitochondria, the powerhouse of the heart, whose ability to generate energy decreases in patients with obesity and diabetes. We expect this project will allow us to understand how damaged mitochondria causes irregular heart rhythms in patients with obesity.
4. How might your research impact diseases related to obesity or smoking?
Obese patients often have an irregular heart rhythm, but non-invasive treatment methods are limited. If left untreated, irregular heart rhythms will increase patients’ chances to have heart failure, stroke, or sudden death. Our long-term goal is to identify targets that can be suitable to develop treatments that lower obese patients’ risk for irregular heart rhythm-related diseases.
5. What is the most critical piece of research equipment for your lab? Why?
As a lab studying heart disease, equipment to measure cardiac function such as echocardiography and electrocardiogram is the most important. Interestingly, the setup for electrocardiogram was partially supported by previous OCASCR funding, leading to the possibility for our lab to study heart rhythms in this new project. This current funding has provided support to establish a collaboration to compete for future federal funding.
6. What is your favorite scientific meeting to attend? Why?
The go-to meeting in our lab is the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences (BCVS) Meeting from the American Heart Association. This is one of the premier meetings for heart research, which has cutting-edge presentations, experts in heart research, and networking opportunities. As a member of the BCVS early career committee, we also organize a valuable program during and after the meeting to promote career development of our next generation heart research scientists. Therefore, this is the favorite scientific meeting for my lab.
